Broadcom wifi card in Ubuntu 10.04

[alexmce]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure you've seen this question before -- I tried searching but I can't find a clear answer.

All I need is to get my wifi up and running in Ubuntu 10.04. I'm currently double-booted with XP on a Dell Latitude E5400 laptop. I'm in Windows right now. I can't post my lpsci readout because I can't access the internet from Ubuntu -- no access to wired connection.

I worked on this problem for a long time last night and fixed it somehow by installing a driver program -- it had "cutter" in the name. Today, however, I try to log in and Ubuntu won't connect to an open wifi point. Boot #1 it recognized it but wouldn't connect. Boot #2 it wouldn't recognize it at all (said "wireless is disabled" even though it wasn't. Boot #3 it would recognize the wifi point but wouldn't connect.) I can mantain a constant connection to this wifi in Windows XP and also on my Android phone.

I just want someone to please tell me how to get my wifi working reliably. I'm excited to switch over to Ubuntu, all I need is for the wifi to work.

My wifi card is a Broadcom 43xx (4312?). Something like that.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Alex

[MASONTX]

May be a stupid question, but did you go into system/preferences/network connections, and set up your wireless network?

[reed9]

The cutter package you refer to is called b43-fwcutter. You've already installed it, you said, and it had been working but stopped?

Use the script in the 2nd post of the wireless setup sticky. This will generate a text file with the output of lspci and other commands. Transfer that to a usb stick, and post it from the computer with net access.

[alexmce]

Thanks for replying,

Yes, I installed b43-fcutter two nights ago as the final of about 7 attempts to fix the problem. The wifi card worked after that, but then the following day it would not. Later in the day (I'm at a conference in a hotel), it worked intermittently -- the wifi would connect and stay connected for about two minutes and then stop, taking another full five minutes to reconnect. As this cycle continues, I click on the connection icon to see what's up (I'm trained to right click and choose "repair connection"), and somehow freeze Ubuntu. I froze the system three times yesterday.

I assumed that the problem was the result of the hotel's spotty wifi connection but this morning I tried it at my home, which has stable and reliable wifi, and the same problem happened both in Ubuntu and Windows.

My hypothesis is that in my flailing attempts two nights ago to fix this, I either misinstalled a driver or installed the wrong driver, and like a bicycle chain that's too big, it works for a while until it jams or falls off. Moreover, I'm guessing I corrupted the firmware on the device which is now causing problems in Windows too.

The wired connection at home does the same thing -- operates fine for a while and then stops functioning. I froze once this morning already.

I will do the text file solution and post the lpsci and other info in the next hour or so.

Thank you so much for your willingness to help; I really hope I can solve this and make my internet connections on Ubuntu reliable and stable so I can start my OS transition. I am anxious to be done with Windows!!

Alex

[alexmce]

I tried running the script and failed.

I did, however, save the output of the various terminal commands to text files. Here's the information; I hope one of you can make enough sense of it to be able to help me out:

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a40] (rev 07)
	Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
	Kernel modules: intel-agp
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 07)
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: i915
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a43] (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:2937] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1a.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [8086:2938] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1a.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 [8086:2939] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1a.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [8086:293c] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
	Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
	Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:2942] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
	Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 [8086:2948] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
	Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:2935] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:2936] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [8086:293a] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev 92)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller [8086:2919] (rev 02)
	Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller [8086:2929] (rev 02)
	Kernel driver in use: ahci
	Kernel modules: ahci
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:2930] (rev 02)
	Kernel modules: i2c-i801
02:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II [1180:0476] (rev ba)
	Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
	Kernel modules: yenta_socket
02:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller [1180:0832] (rev 04)
	Kernel driver in use: ohci1394
	Kernel modules: firewire-ohci, ohci1394
02:01.2 SD Host controller [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter [1180:0822] (rev 21)
	Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
	Kernel modules: sdhci-pci
02:01.3 System peripheral [0880]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller [1180:0843] (rev ff)
	Kernel driver in use: ricoh-mmc
	Kernel modules: ricoh_mmc
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5761e Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1680] (rev 10)
	Kernel driver in use: tg3
	Kernel modules: tg3
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
	Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
	Kernel modules: ssb

lsmod:

Module                  Size  Used by
nls_iso8859_1           3249  1 
nls_cp437               4919  1 
vfat                    8901  1 
fat                    47767  1 vfat
binfmt_misc             6587  1 
ppdev                   5259  0 
snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi    11622  1 
snd_hda_codec_idt      51914  1 
fbcon                  35102  71 
tileblit                2031  1 fbcon
font                    7557  1 fbcon
bitblit                 4707  1 fbcon
softcursor              1189  1 bitblit
vga16fb                11385  0 
vgastate                8961  1 vga16fb
joydev                  8708  0 
mmc_block               8258  2 
arc4                    1153  2 
pcmcia                 33024  0 
snd_hda_intel          21877  2 
snd_hda_codec          74201  3 snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep               5412  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm_oss            35308  0 
snd_mixer_oss          13746  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                70662  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy           1338  0 
snd_seq_oss            26726  0 
snd_seq_midi            4557  0 
snd_rawmidi            19056  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      6003  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                47263  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer              19098  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
b43                   157218  0 
i915                  282354  3 
drm_kms_helper         29297  1 i915
yenta_socket           20408  1 
rsrc_nonstatic         10015  1 yenta_socket
snd_seq_device          5700  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
sdhci_pci               5470  0 
dell_wmi                1793  0 
mac80211              204922  1 b43
pcmcia_core            32964  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
ricoh_mmc               2923  0 
drm                   162471  4 i915,drm_kms_helper
sdhci                  15462  1 sdhci_pci
dell_laptop             6856  0 
dcdbas                  5422  1 dell_laptop
snd                    54148  17 snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
cfg80211              126485  2 b43,mac80211
led_class               2864  2 b43,sdhci
intel_agp              24177  2 i915
i2c_algo_bit            5028  1 i915
agpgart                31724  2 drm,intel_agp
psmouse                63245  0 
serio_raw               3978  0 
soundcore               6620  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          7076  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
video                  17375  1 i915
output                  1871  1 video
lp                      7028  0 
parport                32635  2 ppdev,lp
ohci1394               26950  0 
ieee1394               81181  1 ohci1394
ssb                    37336  1 b43
ahci                   32008  1 
tg3                   109292  0

uname -r :

2.6.32-21-generic

dmesg | grep firmware:

[   15.256241] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/ucode15.fw
[   15.266429] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/lp0initvals15.fw
[   15.272988] b43 ssb0:0: firmware: requesting b43/lp0bsinitvals15.fw
[   15.408258] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[   47.012268] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[   58.012441] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  166.908281] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  204.176293] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  204.776283] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  234.424328] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.
[  281.284437] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  287.092515] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  320.952505] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 410.2160 (2007-05-26 15:32:10)
[  329.948495] b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions on this website.

[reed9]

Your card

0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: ssb

I have a Dell Mini with this chipset and while in theory b43 driver is supposed to work as of kernel 2.6.32, I've never found it reliable. There is also a driver released by Broadcom for this card, though, which is what I use.

To install, get a wired connection and do

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source bcmwl-modaliases

You'll need to make sure the b43 driver does not load, or it will conflict.

echo "blacklist b43" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

(This just adds a line blacklist b43 to the text file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf. You can otherwise edit the file with any text editor.)

Restart and you should be good. Note that the wl driver usually renames the interface from wlan0 to eth1. I think with Ubuntu's default network manager, that's not an issue, but if you use something like WICD, you'd need to change the interface name in the configuration.

EDIT: Nothing from your linux install can effect anything in windows. The firmware in this case is loading from a file on the disk, not from something stored on the device.

[alexmce]

Thanks for your help!

I tried what you suggested, but nothing changed.

I thought I would start fresh so I uninstalled Ubuntu entirely and reinstalled it (I'm using Wubi for now and then as I get comfortable with Ubuntu and can trust that everything is stable, then I'll remove Windows).

So now, on a fresh install, should I start by entering the code you suggested or use fw-cutter first?

Alex

[reed9]

Try the broadcom wl driver first. You may not have to manually blacklist b43. I think Ubuntu does it for you when you install that driver.

[SWiT]

I'm having similar problems to what alexmce described. I've tried installing the driver listed above and removing and reinstalling the driver from System->Administration->Hardware Drivers.

I have a dell xps m1530 with a broadcom wifi card. The wifi used to work fine, but in the last month some update broke it. Now I need to turn the physical switch for the wifi and bluetooth OFF before booting ubuntu. Once at the desktop I can turn it on and everything works.

If I leave it on and reboot, bluetooth works but wifi doesn't. About 50% of the time it will leave the BT LED on and turn off the wifi LED on the laptop. The wifi system tray icon will say "wireless is disabled" even if I toggle the switch off and on. However the bluetooth system tray icon responds to the switch toggling normally.

This is the third ubuntu system I've had break from an "update" in the last two years. Way to go Canonical!