[Resolved itself] Wireless issues

[ohjrson]

Well Amazingly somehow, this "Bricked" Wireless started to work again. in Linux Lite 1.08, It was after an update of some kind but none the less magically it works now.

Go figure. Maybe the way I have been carrying it or its use or something I dunno.

Any idea how all of a sudden it now works?

UPDATE:
AS of this date, the wireless is working with a live DVD in the laptop. It has connected to the wireless as well. Seems to be stable at this time.

Update: As of edited date this internal wireless card suddenly started to work with LL 1.08. When I installed Beryl it continues to work. The connection state varies and it seems to lose connection and then get it back more often then being connected. I did nothing to get it to work for me. It just suddenly began to connect one day. I think it may be related to the driver that the wireless card uses.

Go figure.

[N4RPS]

Hello!

I've never heard of a wireless card being 'bricked' before, but since Broadcom cards load card-specific firmware at startup, I won't say it isn't possible. Then again, it could have just picked this particular moment to die.

I dug out a similar laptop from the attic today and removed the wireless card. It's an Intel, which SHOULD be detected automatically by the Linux kernel.

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[ohjrson]

SO I wish to thank all those involved with this and as soon as I burn the ISO and check it out I will inform you all what the result was and go from there... Again thanks for the help.

[ohjrson]

Yeah I tried and did get Window 7 loaded on this pc and it worked to an extent. But when I was trying to get the wireless to work I think I might have burned it out trying to load different drivers. At any rate then after that windows stopped working properly and would randomly shut down or freeze. So I just erased it and put on Linux.... That seemed to work, except for the wireless. So I think I might have burned up that card to a point that it might have stopped working. So yeah I think I did a number on the wireless card when I tried to get the Windows 7 to find the card and make it work. After that it kept shutting down when I tried to use it. So I may have fried it somehow. At any rate I do have the Zorn OS 7 lite ISO and will burn it again to see if it will work. Then I will know. If it does I will be probably asking for help to get that onto Linux Lite. But thanks for all the help.

Les

[N4RPS]

Hello!

Glad you were able to get SOME kind of wireless card going in that pup. If you're still willing to continue troubleshooting your internal card, I'll do all I can to help you.

Funny how Zorin is no longer detecting your internal card, either. Either the card up and died on you, it needs to be reseated (after its edge contacts are cleaned), or it's somehow disabled, either by Fn-F2, the BIOS, or both...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[busprof]

I don't know how much help I was, but I am glad you found a solution.  Having a USB dongle sticking out of the back of the system is admittedly not very suave - but on the other hand, it works!  Longer term you could take N4RPS's advice and look around for a mini-PCI card with a different wireless chipset that would work with your system.  Google is probably your friend, if you want to go that route.

Glad you got this sorted.

Cheers!

[ohjrson]

Hey Thanks for the help. and IMHO I tend to agree with you. Plus I think that I remember that when I tried to load Win 7 into this thing and it did not find the wireless I think I very well could have done something to whatever card might have been there. So I do have a cheap usb adapter that I have plugged in and BOOM it worked right away. Did not have to look for anything or whatever. so it is inconvenient that it sticks out the back of the pc as that is the only location for the usb I will just have to use that. But I really appreciate the help. 

Love this version of linux though...

Take care. 
Les

[busprof]

Well, it tells me that Zorin is not finding the wireless card (at least not this time, based on your posted output).  The TI PCI1420 is a mini-PCI cardbus adapter.  This is *probably* where a mini-PCI wireless card is installed, such as the Truemobile 1150 I found in Dell's specs for your system.  lspci should show all of the information on the wireless card, however, and this is not present.

The main problem, IMHO, is that the card was never very well supported under Linux.  Now that it has some serious age on it there's not much impetus to provide better support.  I guess I'm asking whether you want to continue trying to get this particular card to work, or if you might be open to trying a PCMCIA or USB wireless adapter.  If you pick the right device it's going to be a lot less trouble than banging on with the Truemobile card.

Last thing - since the kernels in both Linux Lite and Zorin are not identifying the card it could also be that the card has stopped working.  Since it was working under Zorin previously I can't explain why it's no longer showing up in the lspci output under Zorin any other way.

Thanks

[ohjrson]

Ok Managed to get the cd to load up. and I have managed to get to a prompt. I did the recommendation above and it gave me this.

Code: [Select]

02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: 3Com Corporation 3c905c-TX/TX-M [Tornado]  [10b7:9200] (rev 78)
            Subsystem: Dell 3C920 Intergrated Fast Ethernet Controller [Latitude C640]  [1028:012a]
            kernel driver in use: 3c59x
02:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCI1420 PC card Cardbus Controller [104c:ac51]
Please keep in mind this was not copied and pasted I had to type all this in.
Does this show anything useful?

Thanks

[busprof]

Hi, ohjrson

You mentioned that you had run Zorin OS and wireless was working.  I wonder if you still have the Zorin live image available?  Or if you are willing to downolad the ISO and boot from it?  If you do, you could boot from it and then do:

Code: [Select]

lspci -knn | grep -EiA2 net[/pre]

That would at least show us what modules Zorin is loading, which would probably tell us what we need for Linux Lite.  Zorin is based on Ubuntu (and maybe Debian) IIRC, so there should be a good deal of cross-compatibility.

Thanks

[ohjrson]

Ok great all that information sounds awesome and I really appreciate the help. Now I do want to comment specificaly

busprof, I agree with you, and I want to add that when I had Zorn os 7 lite installed I was connecting to my network in with the higher security of wpa2 so I know that it will work. In fact I went on the forum and had to ask for help because it would connect and then lose connection and then reconnect again then repeat. But after I did an update that stopped doing that. I also did manage to find through synaptic the rfkill software, installed it and opened the terminal and tried it and it asks for my password and then just gives me back the prompt again. Tried different combinations of commands and got no output information other then the help listing. Which I guess I am not understanding. here is an example:

Code: [Select]

leslie@leslie-Latitude-C640:~$ sudo rfkill list
[sudo] password for leslie:
leslie@leslie-Latitude-C640:~$ rfkill
Usage: rfkill [options] command
Options:
 --version show version (0.4-1ubuntu2 (Ubuntu))
Commands:
 help
 event
 list [IDENTIFIER]
 block IDENTIFIER
 unblock IDENTIFIER
where IDENTIFIER is the index no. of an rfkill switch or one of:
 <idx> all wifi wlan bluetooth uwb ultrawideband wimax wwan gps fm
Not sure what I am doing here.

N4RPS as far as that switching is concerned I just tried that now. (did not seem anything changed) and I don't remember having to do that when I had Zorn os 7 lite installed. So I am not sure if that does anything at all. I am going to reboot and see.
Please let me know if you find anything else.
Thanks

[N4RPS]

Hello!

On older Dells, I believe the Fn key + F2 acts like a switch to enable/disable the wireless card. It has on most every other older Dell I've come across. The Fn key is beside the CTRL key at the bottom left of the keyboard. Additionally, check your BIOS settings (F2 on startup, UIAM) to ensure your card is enabled THERE. If it ISN'T, it will NOT be detected.

Some Dells ALSO have Broadcom WLAN cards that require added software. I have posted about Broadcom WLAN cards on here elsewhere, but before going there, let's figure out exactly what you have first.

Despite aptitude and apt-get being somewhat interchangeable, the more recent versions of Ubuntu (LL's parent distro) generally use apt-get. In THAT case, your command would be as follows:

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get install rfkill
Worst case scenario, an internal wireless card that DOES support WPA/WPA2 can be had in the $10 range, and installs pretty much the same way as memory modules do. Come to think of it, I PROBABLY *HAVE* an old, gutted Latitude C640 with its wireless card still there in my attic...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[busprof]

Well, I've looked at Dell's specs for your computer (Latitude C640) and it seems to use a Dell Truemobile 1150 wireless card (either mini-PCI or PCI, depending upon the build date).  In either case, this card uses the Orinoco driver set (probably orinoco_cs according to a bunch of posts on the Ubuntu forums since at least 2008).

I have found that there are long-standing problems with the Truemobile 1150 card (see for example https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/498336).  I think that even if we are able to find/load an appropriate kernel module to support your card, there will be other problems (this card does not support WPA2 security, for example, which means you would be forced to use less secure wireless protocols such as WEP).

Your C640 has ports for PCMCIA cards (PC cards) on the left side.  You can find PCMCIA wifi cards that are more up-to-date and support WPA2 security, such as those found  <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=pcmcia+wireless+card&_sacat=&_ex_kw=&_mPrRngCbx=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_sop=12&_fpos=&_fspt=1&_sadis=&LH_CAds=">HERE</a>.  NOTE:  Avoid the cards from Agere and Orinoco!  That's the problem you're having now.

Anyway, if you want to stick with the internal card I'll do my best to help, but it's looking like a fairly steep hill to climb (and even if we get to the top of the hill you're STILL without support for WPA2 networks).

Let us know which direction you decide to go.

Thanks!

[busprof]

On the aptitude errors - try using "Install/Remove Software" from the menu instead of the terminal.  It looks as though apt was already running when you attempted the installation.  

On the lspci output - yes, the kernel is still not "seeing" your wifi card.  That's what rfkill is designed to help with.  If you can get rfkill installed and run the "list" command (see my previous post) that may help us diagnose the problem.  I'm thinking that this is going to wind up being a firmware problem.  So if you want to attempt something in between posts open your menu and search for "drivers."  Launch the "install third-party drivers" app and see if it finds anything related to wireless cards.

Thanks (and thanks for hanging in!)

[ohjrson]

Ok so I don't have a switch on this computer that I know of. I do have a button that has an i on it but that is it. It does nothing that I know of. So I tried the install thing you said to do. This is what I got.
Latitude-C640:~$ sudo aptitude install rfkill
[sudo] password for leslie:
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

This is what I got when I ran lspci

Code: [Select]

leslie@leslie-Latitude-C640:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 [Brookdale] Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 [Brookdale] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV200/M7 [Mobility Radeon 7500]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420 PC card Cardbus Controller
02:01.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420 PC card Cardbus Controller
What now?