BCM94311 MCG wireless troubles

[jollyjack]

My Compaq F759WM laptop (similar to HP G6000 series) uses the Broadcom BCM94311 MCG rev 02 wireless card and I am experiencing troubles getting it working. I have tried the bcm43-fwcutter without much luck. I also tried the b43-fwcutter, again without much luck. Even NDISwrapper didnt work for me.

 

Today I read the 2.6.25 kernel contains support (b43 supports new devices (BCM94311MCG rev 02)

 

Any guess when this kernel would be made available? I think the latest update is 2.6.24.5

 

Anyone succeeded with this bleeding edge wireless chip?

[MagnusB]

I think I have rev 01 which works excellent with ndiswrapper. Did you use bcmwl5.inf?

[jollyjack]

Yes...but it may have been the wrong version or something. Next I am going to try this version of the driver (which I snipped from ndswrapper website). Mandriva 2008.1 ships with version 1.52 of ndiswrapper....so should work after I remove the references to the bcm43xx module in /etc/modpobe.conf

 

Also I guess I have to blacklist ssb and bcm43xx in /etc/blacklist-compat then reboot before attempting to load the nsdiswrapper.

 

 

Card: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG

 

Chipset: Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02)

pciid: 14E4:4311

ndiswrapper: version 1.52

Distro: Ubuntu 8.4 desktop (kernel: 2.6.24-16-generic)

PC: HP pavillon dv2000

Driver: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe

 

other: unload module ssb and bcm43xx

 

 

Update:

--------------

Ndiswrapper works perfectly following these steps. so until Mandriva releases the 2.6.25 kernel as an update, I think ndiswrapper will be the only way to get this particular chip working. BTW....This works great using the WPA2 personal with TKIP/AES of my DD-WRT v24 loaded Linksys router. The key was blacklisting the ssb and bcm43xx modules in /etc/blacklist-compat and removing the 1 (or sometimes 2) references to bcm43xx in /etc/modprobe.conf. I cheated a bit as I downloaded the drivers on a windows machine and extracted them to a USB drive.

Edited June 22, 2008 by jollyjack

[manmath sahu]

Thanks Jollyjack!

 

I had similar problems in wireless configuration. Your suggestions did the trick and I am editing my post from Linksys wireless connection. Here is the details what I did.

 

I have Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 02) in my Compaq Presario C702TU notebook. And I am using Mandriva 2008. Previously I had tried a lot including ndiswrapper and all that. Though sometimes it worked it messed up system startup and shutdown process. May be because I did not disable/remove the native bcm43xx driver that kept on interfering with the windows driver pulled in my ndiswrapper. Now as per your suggestion I removed bcmfwcutter and blacklisted ssb and bcm43xx in blacklist-compat and modprobe.conf. Rebooted the system and installed bcmwl5.inf by ndiswrapper. And lo! It worked like a charm.

 

Everybody having problem with their broadcom wlan cards should try this trick.

Edited June 22, 2008 by manmath sahu

[MagnusB]

Just another note, I have had some issues using ndiswrapper below version 1.48. It was causing a kernel panic in Mint. Not sure if it was a ndiswrapper issue or a Mint / Ubuntu issue, though.

And in Ubuntu you have to add b43 and ssb to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and ndiswrapper to /etc/modules, in Mandriva I think I just ran the Wireless configuration utility.

Edited June 22, 2008 by MagnusB

[manmath sahu]

It may or may not help. But here is the link to my blog where I have posted my experience with broadcom wlan on Mandriva.

 

How I got my broadcom wlan card working on mandriva 2008 powerpack

[Guest sdrambo]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1300 with a DW1470 WiFi card which uses the Broadcom BCM4311 chip. I tried your suggestion but the ndiswrapper driver still will not load, here is my modprobe.conf

#alias eth0 bcm43xx
alias sound-slot-0 snd_hda_intel
options snd-ac97-codec power_save=1
install usb-interface /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd; /sbin/modprobe uhci_hcd; /bin/true
alias eth1 b44
install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe piix; /bin/true
alias pci:v000014E4d0000170Csv00001028sd000001C9bc02sc00i00 b44
alias eth2 ndiswrapper
and my blacklist-compat file
#
# Listing a module here prevents the hotplug scripts from loading it.
# Usually that'd be so that some other driver will bind it instead,
# no matter which driver happens to get probed first.  Sometimes user
# mode tools can also control driver binding.
#
# Syntax:  driver name alone (without any spaces) on a line. Other
# lines are ignored.
#

# watchdog drivers
blacklist i8xx_tco

# framebuffer drivers
blacklist aty128fb
blacklist atyfb
blacklist radeonfb
blacklist i810fb
blacklist cirrusfb
blacklist intelfb
blacklist kyrofb
blacklist i2c-matroxfb
blacklist hgafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivafb
blacklist savagefb
blacklist sstfb
blacklist neofb
blacklist tridentfb
blacklist tdfxfb
blacklist virgefb
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist matroxfb_base
blacklist ssb
blacklist bcm43xx

# ISDN - see bugs 154799, 159068
blacklist hisax
blacklist hisax_fcpcipnp

What have I done wrong. Thanks Ian

[pmpatrick]

Just to add my two cents, I have the identical card on a Compaq F730. It has been a pain to configure on many distros but it works perfectly with mandriva 2008.1 using ndiswrapper. As others have advised, it will not work with the open source bcm43xx broadcom driver that most distros will use by default so don't even go there. Also, it was extremely tricky to configure on mandriva 2008 so I would advise skipping that and using only Mandriva 2008 Spring edition, a/k/a Mandriva 2008.1.

[jollyjack]

It looks like you are still loading the b44 native drivers:

 

alias eth1 b44

 

 

Try uninstalling b44 firmware cutter, then give it another try.

If that is not your wireless adapter and instead your LAN nic, then not sure what to tell you.

Edited July 3, 2008 by jollyjack

[pmpatrick]

The b44 module is for the regular wired ethernet port, not the broadcom wireless card. On most Compaq laptops the onboard nic also has a broadcom chipset which is why the b44 module is loading.