Question about rfkill

[MickeyRat]

This is Linux Mint 12 64 bit on an HP Probook 6560 with a Broadcom BCM43224 network card. I've been through just about every thread there is regarding drivers but, I'm coming to the conclusion that the driver isn't my problem.

This laptop does have a wireless button but, it looks like the wireless is bocked no matter what I do with it. Here's what it does:

> rfkill list all
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

Press wireless button

> rfkill list all
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Turn wireless button off in BIOS.

> rfkill list all
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

As expected pressing the button with it turned off in the BIOS has no effect. rfkill unblock all/wifi/wlan has no effect.

My thinking is that drivers aren't going to effect that phy0 hard block and I need to be looking elsewhere. Is that correct? If it is correct, what should I be looking at?

I'll keep digging if it can be drivers but, I've tried lots of different options including downloading the driver files and compiling them myself.

[MikeTbob]

Did you try

rfkill unblock all

[MickeyRat]

Did you try

rfkill unblock all

Yes, I did. I also did an rfkill unblock wifi and rfkill unblock wlan. None of them seemed to do anything. Thanks for the reply though.

This is mostly speculation from what little I can glean that doesn't just say press the wireless button but, I think I may be dealing with a kernel problem. That said, there's not a lot I've been able to find that really says what can effect what rfkill says except the button. Eliminating the drivers would be great! I've already spent hours on the drivers to no avail.

[jmadero]

Not sure exactly but a search came up with these two threads:

[all variants] New brcm80211 driver guide for Broadcom wireless cards - Ubuntu Forums

[ubuntu] 10.10 Broadcom wireless BCM43224 - unstable latency - Ubuntu Forums

[MickeyRat]

As always, I appreciate the reply.

Those are driver threads and I've been through a ton of them but, there are a ton more I'm sure. There are some things in those I didn't try. However, as I understand it, a hard block in rfkill indicates that the kernel thinks the wireless is turned off by an actual external switch or a BIOS setting, etc. If that's right, it won't matter which drivers I load because it won't try to use them. What I'm really asking is whether a driver can cause that phy0 hard block.

All I can find about rfkill is that it's checking on a status in the kernel. In the places where I found that, everything else went over my head in a hurry. The only other information says to toggle the switch and I've done that.

It's not really kosher but, I may try cross posting this in the kernel forum. They might be the best ones to answer that question.