laptop will not connect to wifi when encryption is enabled

[rastro123]

Hi
Even when I put the code in, my l.top will not connect if there is encryption turned on.Yes I do put the correct password in!! I have tried it both in ubuntu and windows and backtrack. If there is no encrytion it connects fine but I generally use friends connections as I dont have my own internet and they dont want to turn the encrytion off. It has been sugested that the wireless card may be up the juntion. Has anyone else had a similar problem and how did they fix it? Is there anything I can do to test the wireless card? Many thanks if anyone has any ideas. My laptop is a hp dv5 1118es and the wireless is broadcom 4312.

[waterhead]

You say that it won't connect to an encrypted network in windows either? Then it is either the wireless card or the network that you are trying to connect to.

Try taking somewhere and connect to a different encrypted connection.Maybe a school, library or coffee shop. You want to try and see if it is the card or not.

It could be your friend's method of encryption. Not all wireless cards support the newest forms of encryption.

[rastro123]

You say that it won't connect to an encrypted network in windows either? Then it is either the wireless card or the network that you are trying to connect to.

Try taking somewhere and connect to a different encrypted connection.Maybe a school, library or coffee shop. You want to try and see if it is the card or not.

It could be your friend's method of encryption. Not all wireless cards support the newest forms of encryption.

Thanks waterhead- so it is perfectly feesable that the problem lies with the wireless card? I tried 3 different places with wpa encryption on, and it wont connect. I have 4 places here that I can use that doesn't have any security enabled and it connects straight away. I've just emailed broadcom but I dont know if they will deal with an end-user. Thanks. Could the fact that I have been messing with a linksys usb wireless to try to do packet injection (I couldn't get it to work in the end) have anything to do with it? Could I have fried something?
A strange thing yesterday - I formatted the l.top again, putting a little partition with windows 7 on and the rest with ubuntu, I went to the nearest free access place with no encryption and it would not connect to their server. I went to mcdonalds free access and it did connect. I put wicd back on and returned to the first place and straight away it connected, although I havent tried it with windows there yet. Once again thanks for advice.

[waterhead]

I don't know enough about your card, and the wl driver to say what is the culprit. Trying Wicd is a good choice when you are having connection problems.

I did find the spec sheet on the Broadcom 4312 chip:

http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/4312-PB00-R.pdf

Security: WEP, WPA Personal, WPA2 Personal, WMM,
WMM-PS (UA-PSE), TKIP, and AES hardware acceleration

So it should be able to handle any encryption method that it comes across. Just make sure that you are using the latest version of the driver. You may even want to try and compile it from source.

Broadcom.com - 802.11 Linux STA driver

[rastro123]

Sorry for late reply. Thanks for your trouble in finding the driver for me, however, I dont really understand the instructions so well in the read me file.
I downloaded it to a folder in my home directory called src, so I'm there, and I do mkdir hybrid_wl , its there, I'm looking at it. Then I do cd hybrid_wl then I get stuck....I dont understand number 3 maybe Im stupid, but I dont get it. I dont know what a linux loadable kernal is...and then- 3: Remove any other drivers for the Broadcom wireless.- I dont know how this is done? Niether am I sure just what exactly is a ''top level directory'' - would this be src folder that I downloaded to? Yep....I know pretty dumb eh, but even in windows I never went to command line stuff. If ever there was a problem I found it quicker just to reinstall than try to solve problems. Could you possible give me a few basic instructions on how this is all done pls? - Or point me to a good pdf link that explains how to do it all? Many thanks mate.

[reed9]

I did a little research and it's unclear if Ubuntu 9.04 has the latest version. The source package for linux-restricted-modules, which contains the wl driver, lists it as 5.10.91.9 vs 5.10.91.9-3 as the latest on the broadcom website. So I assume it's a couple of revisions behind. I didn't check, but it's probable that Ubuntu 9.10 will have the current driver and might work better. The final release is due out at the end of the month, but I haven't had any trouble testing the beta release.

Going back to 9.04, this should work as an easier way of installing the module. First, disable the module in the Drivers Manager.

#Make sure you have the proper build tools

sudo apt-get build-essential debhelper module-assistant quilt wireless-tools

#Download the source debs

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/b/broadcom-sta/broadcom-sta-source_5.10.91.9-3_all.deb
wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/b/broadcom-sta/broadcom-sta-common_5.10.91.9-3_all.deb

#Install and build

sudo dpkg -i broadcom-sta-common*deb broadcom-sta-source*deb
sudo m-a a-i broadcom-sta

#Load the module and check see how it goes

sudo modprobe wl

[rastro123]

Thanks a lot read9, but Im stuck at first post:

boo@boo-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get build-essential debhelper module-assistant quilt wireless-tools
E: Operación inválida: build-essential
boo@boo-laptop:~$
boo@boo-laptop:~$

Invalid operation! Could it be invalid because I already have it here, but don't know?

Incidently I did try the beta version out a few days ago. It seemed to install ok and it looked nice, but there was no wireless icon at the top, and because I dont have access to wired connection I ended up putting 9.04 back on. - I wait a little longer untill the 29th!

[reed9]

That's because I mistyped. Should be

sudo apt-get install build-essential debhelper module-assistant quilt wireless-tools

[rastro123]

Hi, well, a strange thing happened yesterday: I went to someones house where they have wep encryption, I tried to get a connection with ubuntu and could not. Then I tried it with windows and to my surprise it did indeed connect, - after telling my friends there was no chance. But to my evern bigger surprise I changed back to ubuntu, tried again, and the pc connected. Maybe its a wpa only issue, I still dont know as I still have yet to try with wpa encryption. Im still a bit uneasy to try this driver you found for me in case I mess it up, - but at least I now know the card in the pc is ok. Thanks again for your time in helping me.