Wireless lan card detection [solved]

[Rama Murthy]

I have installed mandriva 2007 on my dell inspiron 1501 laptop. My wireless lan is not being detected by mandriva .. 802.11g wireless LAN is what I have on my laptop..

I have installed only first two installation CDs..

Where can I get the drivers?

when I tried locating for driver in the installation cds, it said It can also take a .ini file (windows driver format) and install the driver for me.. Is is possible :o ? I still dint try this..

Please advise...

[Guest rxjxyz]

Hi, it's quite easy to work it out. Just set up the wireless in control center, you can select to use ndiswrapper, then you will be told to find the *.inf file(which you could find in C:\windows\system32\drivers), if you really can not find it, just download one.

[tyme]

What you do really depends on what kind of wireless card you have...specifically, model and chipset. If you don't have this information, let us know what model of laptop you are using, and we should be able to determine it's type.

 

Or you could just grab the *.inf file and go that route...might or might not work. again, depends on the card.

[Rama Murthy]

Hi, it's quite easy to work it out. Just set up the wireless in control center, you can select to use ndiswrapper, then you will be told to find the *.inf file(which you could find in C:\windows\system32\drivers), if you really can not find it, just download one.

Thank you!! I will try this today..

 

What you do really depends on what kind of wireless card you have...specifically, model and chipset. If you don't have this information, let us know what model of laptop you are using, and we should be able to determine it's type.

 

Or you could just grab the *.inf file and go that route...might or might not work. again, depends on the card.

Hi..mine is dell insprion 1501 laptop with AMD turion 64 MK36 2Gigahz processor..

Ram: 1GB DDR II SDRAM

HDD: Serial ATA

Networking

Data link protocol

Ethernet, Fast Ethernet

Lancard:

802.11g wireless LAN

 

thank you..

[Rama Murthy]

Hi..

I have searched for drivers and I got these two files..

bcmw15.inf and bcmw15.sys..

I have installed these drivers by the command

ndiswrapper -i bcmw15.inf..

I have also configured my new internet connection.. It got configured..

but in the system configuration menu, when i click wireless lan icon, It still says no device found...

Do i need to recompile my kernel or something like that?

Please help!!

[pmpatrick]

You probably need to get down to the command line to effectively trouble shoot this. Open a console and run:

 

$ su

<enter root password>

# lsmod

 

and post the output.

 

Also run:

 

# ndiswrapper -l

# iwconfig

 

and post the output of both. The above commands' output will give everyone the necessary info for troubleshooting. FYI "lsmod" lists all modules(aka drivers in windows) currently loaded on your system; "ndiswrapper -l" will list all windows drivers installed on your sytem through ndiswrapper and "iwconfig" will list all wireless devices recognized by your system.

Edited January 25, 2007 by pmpatrick

[Rama Murthy]

Thank you.. Here are the outputs..

lsmod:

Module				  Size  Used by
isofs				  32444  1 
ipt_IFWLOG			  3780  2 
ipt_psd				44488  1 
ip_set_iptree		   7368  2 
xt_tcpudp			   3776  11 
xt_state				2688  12 
xt_pkttype			  2496  4 
iptable_raw			 2496  0 
xt_CLASSIFY			 2464  0 
xt_CONNMARK			 2912  0 
xt_MARK				 2976  0 
xt_length			   2592  0 
xt_connmark			 2592  0 
xt_physdev			  3024  0 
xt_policy			   4320  6 
xt_multiport			3904  4 
xt_conntrack			2976  0 
ipt_ULOG				7204  0 
ipt_TTL				 2752  0 
ipt_ttl				 2464  0 
ipt_TOS				 2688  0 
ipt_tos				 2240  0 
ipt_TCPMSS			  4288  0 
ipt_set				 3008  2 
ipt_SAME				2976  0 
ipt_REJECT			  5184  4 
ipt_REDIRECT			2848  0 
ipt_recent			 10188  0 
ipt_owner			   2560  0 
ipt_NETMAP			  2752  0 
ipt_MASQUERADE		  3936  0 
ipt_LOG				 7232  9 
ipt_iprange			 2432  0 
ipt_hashlimit		   8168  0 
ipt_ECN				 3424  0 
ipt_ecn				 2752  0 
ipt_DSCP				2688  0 
ipt_dscp				2272  0 
ipt_CLUSTERIP		   7652  0 
ipt_ah				  2496  0 
ipt_addrtype			2432  0 
ip_set_portmap		  4896  0 
ip_set_macipmap		 4836  0 
ip_set_ipmap			4896  0 
ip_set_iphash		   7908  0 
ip_set				 19196  11 ip_set_iptree,ipt_set,ip_set_portmap,ip_set_macipmap,ip_set_ipmap,ip_set_iphash
ip_nat_irc			  2912  0 
ip_nat_tftp			 2272  0 
ip_nat_ftp			  3648  0 
ip_conntrack_irc		6000  1 ip_nat_irc
ip_conntrack_tftp	   4088  1 ip_nat_tftp
ip_conntrack_ftp		6960  1 ip_nat_ftp
iptable_nat			 7652  0 
ip_nat				 15692  8 ipt_SAME,ipt_REDIRECT,ipt_NETMAP,ipt_MASQUERADE,ip_nat_irc,ip_nat_tftp,ip_nat_ft
p,iptable_nat
ip_conntrack		   48320  13 xt_state,xt_CONNMARK,xt_connmark,xt_conntrack,ipt_MASQUERADE,ip_nat_irc,ip_nat_t
ftp,ip_nat_ftp,ip_conntrack_irc,ip_conntrack_tftp,ip_conntrack_ftp,iptable_nat,i
p
_nat
nfnetlink			   5912  2 ip_nat,ip_conntrack
iptable_mangle		  3104  1 
iptable_filter		  3232  1 
ip_tables			  12740  4 iptable_raw,iptable_nat,iptable_mangle,iptable_filter
x_tables			   12132  40 ipt_IFWLOG,ipt_psd,xt_tcpudp,xt_state,xt_pkttype,xt_CLASSIFY,xt_CONNMARK,xt_MARK
,xt_length,xt_connmark,xt_physdev,xt_policy,xt_multiport,xt_conntrack,ipt_ULOG,i
p
t_TTL,ipt_ttl,ipt_TOS,ipt_tos,ipt_TCPMSS,ipt_set,ipt_SAME,ipt_REJECT,ipt_REDIREC
T
,ipt_recent,ipt_owner,ipt_NETMAP,ipt_MASQUERADE,ipt_LOG,ipt_iprange,ipt_hashlimi
t
,ipt_ECN,ipt_ecn,ipt_DSCP,ipt_dscp,ipt_CLUSTERIP,ipt_ah,ipt_addrtype,iptable_nat
,
ip_tables
ipv6				  237120  10 
snd_seq_dummy		   3620  0 
snd_seq_oss			31392  0 
snd_seq_midi_event	  7072  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq				49488  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device		  7212  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
ndiswrapper		   169776  0 
snd_pcm_oss			40384  0 
snd_mixer_oss		  16096  1 snd_pcm_oss
b44					22284  0 
mii					 5664  1 b44
af_packet			  17960  0 
snd_hda_intel		  15828  1 
snd_hda_codec		 164544  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm				70116  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer			  19620  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc		  8712  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd					46500  11 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_h
da_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore			   8096  1 snd
video				  13924  0 
thermal				11240  0 
processor			  21448  1 thermal
fan					 4036  0 
container			   3968  0 
button				  5808  0 
battery				 8260  0 
ac					  4292  0 
ide_cd				 35776  1 
binfmt_misc			 9800  1 
loop				   15400  0 
nls_utf8				2624  4 
ntfs				  266940  3 
dm_mod				 49944  0 
amd64_agp			  10948  0 
agpgart				27240  1 amd64_agp
nvram				   8104  0 
ehci_hcd			   29160  0 
usbmouse				5280  0 
usbhid				 49024  0 
ohci_hcd			   19012  0 
usbcore			   113472  6 ndiswrapper,ehci_hcd,usbmouse,usbhid,ohci_hcd
tsdev				   7040  0 
evdev				   8864  2 
joydev				  8928  0 
ext3				  124936  1 
jbd					51028  1 ext3
sd_mod				 18368  6 
ata_piix			   10500  0 
ahci				   15140  5 
libata				 60620  2 ata_piix,ahci
scsi_mod			  118376  3 sd_mod,ahci,libata

iwconfig:

[root@localhost Desktop]# iwconfig
lo		no wireless extensions.

eth0	  no wireless extensions.

wlan0	 IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any  Nickname:"localhost"
	  Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
	  Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm   
	  RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B   
	  Encryption key:off
	  Power Management:off
	  Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
	  Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
	  Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

sit0	  no wireless extensions.

[root@localhost Desktop]#

ndiswrapper -l:

[root@localhost Desktop]# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
autorun invalid driver!
bcmwl5		  driver installed, hardware present 
bcmwl5.sys	  invalid driver!

[root@localhost Desktop]#

[pmpatrick]

Looks good. From lsmod, you can see ndiswrapper is loading on boot. As it loads it should create a wireless interface and iwconfig shows that's exactly what occurred; wlan0 was created but it is not yet configured. The ndiswrapper -l command shows you have the broadcom windows driver(bcmw15) installed but you alos improperly installed a *.sys file which I expected to see from your prior post. With ndiswrapper, you should only attempt to install *.inf files.

 

You can get rid of bcmwl5.sys in two ways. As root you can run:

 

# ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5.sys

 

Or you can go into /etc/ndiswrapper and delete bcmwl5.sys. You need to be root to delete that file which you can accompolish from the command line with:

 

# rm /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5.sys

 

In either case, bcmwl5.sys will be deleted. Make absolutely sure you are deleting bcmwl5.sys and not bcmwl5, otherwise you will have to reinstall bcmwl5 by using the bcmwl5.inf file again.

 

After doing the above, the error message from ndiswrapper-l should go away.

 

With that done, you can try to configure wlan0 directly from the command line. You need to know the essid for the wireless router you want to hook up with. If the router is using a wep key, you will also have to know that. wpa encryption does not work that well with ndiswrapper and you need a separate application to use it called wpa supplicant. For your initial test, I would recommend changing to wep encryption or no encryption if you are currently using wpa.

 

Open a console, su to root, and run:

 

# iwconfig wlan0 essid <insert essid name>

# iwconfig wlan0 key <insert WEP hex key>

# dhclient wlan0

 

That should do it assuming you are using dhcp instead of a static ip.

[Rama Murthy]

T H A N K Y O U!!!!

I am now able to connect to internet...

Thanks a ton...