help me with the wireless LAN on Acer 5300

[Pythonschlange]

Hello,

Can anyone help me set up the BCM4318 wireless LAN? ndiswrapper doesnot work. I used fwcutter and modprobe to install. lsmod shows the following information:

bcm43xx 417768 0
firmware_class 11648 2 bcm43xx,pcmcia
ieee80211softmac 27008 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 33864 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

And KWiF manage gives the green signal. But the wireless light never comes up. Then i configured the network using DHCP and it failed. I have no idea what I should do? Thanks for any suggestions.

[johnrw]

[ I put a much simpler fix for this in the thread Problem with BCM4318 wireless LAN on Acer 5300 ]

(I could be wrong, but getting an updated version worked for me.)
To make things more complicated, there is also a kernel driver for your chip, bcm43xx.
So when knoppix boots up, that driver loads. It does not support WEP yet (as delivered on 5.0.1 but may by now in later versions). The bcm43xx driver also gave me an error msg about missing some firmware.

remove the kernel driver
rmmod bcm43xx

Install these 2 upgrades.
ndiswrapper-common_1.23-1_all.deb
ndiswrapper-utils-1.8_1.23-1_i386.deb
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper

then
wlcardconfig and netcardconfig should set things up.

best,
john

[Pythonschlange]

Thanks johnrw. I followed your instructions but it did not work.

I rmmod the kernel driver, updated the two ndiswrapper packages and reconfigure the wireless network. The wireless light still did not come up. What's more, the wireless netcard was not found when I used dhcp to configure the network. It showed:

Sending DHCP broadcast from device eth0SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
Operation failed.
Failed.
Hit return to exit

Then I checked with lsmod. It said:

bcm43xx 417768 0
firmware_class 11648 2 pcmcia,bcm43xx
ieee80211softmac 27008 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 33864 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
usbcore 109084 6 usb_storage,uhci_hcd,usbhid,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd

I was totally confused about this. Could give me some more suggestion?

[Pythonschlange]

I solved the problem of not finding the netcard by putting bcm43xx in the blacklist. But the wireless light still refused to come up.

#ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware present

#dmesg | grep bcm43xx

bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.

#lsmod | grep bcm43xx
(got nothing)

Can you give me some suggestion on this problem? Thanks.

[hotumattua]

Hello,

Can anyone help me set up the BCM4318 wireless LAN? ndiswrapper doesnot work. I used fwcutter and modprobe to install. lsmod shows the following information:

bcm43xx 417768 0
firmware_class 11648 2 bcm43xx,pcmcia
ieee80211softmac 27008 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 33864 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac

And KWiF manage gives the green signal. But the wireless light never comes up. Then i configured the network using DHCP and it failed. I have no idea what I should do? Thanks for any suggestions.

Have you already solved the problem? I could handle the issue of configuring wireless card only using the DVD. Booting from CD I couldn't enable my wireless card either. So, if the the matter is still of any interes for you, let me know and I'll give you some suggestions. RGDS

[Pythonschlange]

Hi hotumattua,

I have not solved the problem till now. Actually I installed Knoppix5.01 live on DVD on my HD. Please post some suggestioins. Thank you very much.

[johnrw]

2 things that I found broken when trying 2 use the kernel driver bcm43xx.

1. If your router has wep, wpa, wpa2 enabled... you won't be able to use this driver.
2. dhcp, this is really important for wireless.

What security settings is your wireless router using?

Here is what bcm43xx looks like when working (in dmesg)
bcm43xx driver
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:04.0[A] -> Link [LNKE] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4306, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 6
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0x2, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x4, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x80d, rev 0x1, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x807, rev 0x1, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 4: ID 0x804, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 5: ID 0x812, rev 0x4, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Ignoring additional 802.11 core.
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 1, Type 2, Revision 1
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 2205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 2)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off

When you get the firmware part of this right...
it will look something close to that just above...
(Note: bcm43xx: Number of cores: 6)

There is still more to do once the firmware is correct.
Is yours correctly installed yet?

[hotumattua]

Hi hotumattua,

I have not solved the problem till now. Actually I installed Knoppix5.01 live on DVD on my HD. Please post some suggestioins. Thank you very much.

Hi,

I made a description of how did I solved this problem to the following address:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/posting.php?mode=quote&p=107836

I hope it will work in your case too.
Hotu Mattua

[Pythonschlange]

I uninstalled the bcm43xx and reinstalled it with bcm43xx-fwcutter.

lsmod | grep bcm43xx
bcm43xx 417768 0
ieee80211softmac 27008 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 33864 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
firmware_class 11648 2 bcm43xx,pcmcia

This looks normal, right?

dmeg | grep bcm43xx show some errors.

bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: Radio turned on
bcm43xx: Chip initialized
bcm43xx: DMA initialized
bcm43xx: 80211 cores initialized
bcm43xx: Keys cleared
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (RX) max used slots: 0/64
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0260 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0240 (TX) max used slots: 0/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0220 (TX) max used slots: 1/512
bcm43xx: DMA 0x0200 (TX) max used slots: 0/512

Can you get some clues from this information?

I used cable connection to the internet. Security setting is wap. But this is not a problem. I can switch to wep if my wireless card can work.

thanks.[/quote]

[Pythonschlange]

thanks for your suggestion. I can enable the wireless card in system/networking, but I could not activate it. In the control center, I could not even enable it. Do you know what's the problem with my machine? thanks.

[johnrw]

I uninstalled the bcm43xx and reinstalled it with bcm43xx-fwcutter.

lsmod | grep bcm43xx
bcm43xx 417768 0
ieee80211softmac 27008 1 bcm43xx
ieee80211 33864 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
firmware_class 11648 2 bcm43xx,pcmcia

This looks normal, right?


Good so far.



dmeg | grep bcm43xx show some errors.

bcm43xx driver
bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4318, rev 0x2
bcm43xx: Number of cores: 4
bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0xd, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x9, vendor 0x4243, disabled
bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x804, rev 0xc, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x80d, rev 0x7, vendor 0x4243, enabled
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 3, Type 2, Revision 7
bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 8205017f (Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 8)
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: Radio turned off
bcm43xx: PHY connected
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.
bcm43xx: Error: Microcode "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.


the stuff above is where the driver fails on bootup...
Below that, looks good except I don't see this line... or something similar

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:04.0[A] -> Link [LNKE] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
(from my driver output above)




bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()
bcm43xx: ASSERTION FAILED (radio_attenuation < 10) at: drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1485:bcm43xx_find_lopair()


This looks like something is still getting in the way. IRQ conflict. Wrong driver files ,DMA who knows...
antenna signal is probably zero as seen by the driver (without looking at driver source)

which firmware did you use? You need to get the right driver files for this to work... pay attention to 32 or 64 bit.

what does lspci say?

If you look here for a driver that matches yoour card... and use firmware cutter on one of those.
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List
that would be a good starting point.

best,
john

[johnrw]

After googling your error, these 2 links may indicate that bcm43xx may not work for your card yet.
The bcm43xx driver is seems to be very active on the development side. So, if it is not working yet for your card you shouldn't have long to wait.

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0605.1/1318.html

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0605.1/1333.html

I think you should try to repair ndiswrapper, after knoppix boots up. I have encryption when using that method, and dhcp which is probably more important in wireless circumstances.

If you try to fix ndiswrapper, then I must also recomend getting the kernel module source package,
which will not compile if you don't disable usb support. (You'll get an error on line 665 in usb.c)
For others with usb cards... here is a patch that fixes that one:
667c667,668
< pipe_handle->bEndpointAddress, interval);
---
> pipe_handle->bEndpointAddress,
> pipe_handle->bInterval);



You can use the "Manage Software in KNOPPIX" item found in the Knoppix -> Utilities to upgrade to these 3
ndiswrapper-common (1.23-1)
ndiswrapper-source (1.23-1)
ndiswrapper-utils-1.8

Or just get them straight here.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ndiswrapper-source
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ndiswrapper-common

This one has a 386 and a 64 bit version...
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/ndiswrapper-utils-1.8
So I would let kpackage pick :)

But I found the kernel driver version 1.16 was lacking, and the source 1.23 version works, though it does emit some harmless messages in the system log when I change things around. :)

If you tell kpackage to get the source for the kernel module, it will be downloaded to /usr/src
(I just copy it to the desktop and extract it there.)
go to the new folder and do a
make ; make install

Although, once you decide to upgrade the kernel module, you'll need to get the newer debhelper too
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/debhelper
In case you are wondering... I don't do this evertime I bootup, I have it in scripts that start when Knoppix loads my configs.tbz.
They add about a minute to start knoppix, but having wireless makes it worth it.

If you would like, you can email me directly and I will just send you the files to try out. You have been without wireless for too long. :)

best,
john