Wireless Detected but won't Activate

[CaseyB]

My Wireless card is detected fine on my new F9 install:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/CasetB/NetConfig.png

but when I try to activate it, it fails with this message:
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

Determining IP information for wlan0...SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Here's the output of iwconfig:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key: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

I am a noob, so I am sure I am doing something wrong, but I have searched around and can't find a fix for it.

[bbfuller]

Hello CaseyB

Whether your card will work or not first comes down, with the b43 driver, to if you have cut the firmware?

If you have it depends on which broadcom card you have:

/sbin/lspci

from the command line will tell us that.

Generally if you have done one and your card is supported, there are two ways of controlling wireless cards in Fedora, Network Configuration which you are showing and NetworkManager which runs automatically after an install from CD but not necessarily from DVD.

The two methods of controlling wireless cards conflict if they are both running. The usual advice unless you need static ip addresses is to use NetwokManager as it makes managing wireless encryption keys easy.

Below is a general set of instructions for running with NetworkManager.

Network Configuration is off the Gnome system Menu - Administration - Network. There, the normal advice would be to highlight the entry for your card on the Devices tab and click "Edit" on the tool bar.

Make sure that in the new config options, "Activate Device when Computer starts" is NOT ticked. There may be one or two options that should be ticked depending on how up to date your system is. "Controlled by NetworkManager" and "Allow all users......." should be ticked. Close Network Configuration and don't use it to control the card any more.

NetworkManager should be on the top Gnome Panel in the Notification area. If it's not, start it from "Gnome System Menu - Administration - Services". NetworkManager and NetworkManager Dispatcher should be ticked to start at boot, started and the configuration saved.

Now if you restart the machine, NM on the Gnome Panel should list available wireless networks by left clicking on it and left clicking on one should prompt for network encryption key.

Post back if you have any questions.

[CaseyB]

WOOOHOOO! I cut the firmware and did an ifup and it worked! Thank you so much!!

[CaseyB]

Ok, so it is working, but it's really slow. Here is the output of lspci
# lspci | grep Wireless
02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
And I downloaded the broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5 firmware. Is there a firmware mismatch or something that is causing it to be so slow? I am running a x86_64 system, are these drivers 32-bit?

[bbfuller]

Hello CaseyB

Depends on how you quantify slow of course. My 4306 does about 1.7 megabytes second under samba and that's about as much as I've ever seen from any wireless network.

What figures are you seeing to lead you to that conclusion.

[CaseyB]

Depends on how you quantify slow of course.
I am defining it qualitatively. I haven't run any bench marks, but when I am connect to the wired network google loads as soon as I hit GO, when I am connected to the wireless it takes 10 - 15 seconds. :(

I'll see if I can get more solid number tonight.

[bbfuller]

Hello CaseyB

when I am connect to the wired network google loads as soon as I hit GO, when I am connected to the wireless it takes 10 - 15 seconds

I wouldn't have suspected that sort of slowness, is it that it takes a long time for the name resolution to take place and then the page loads quickly, or is it that the whole page just appears slowly? Perhaps something with more graphics may provide a clue as to that.

If you right click on your NetworkManager icon and select "Connection Information" does it give you the correct DNS information? What speed does it report?

[CaseyB]

Hmmm. today it seems to be behaving itself! It has the correct dns info and says it running at 54 Mb/s. Maybe there was other network difficulties when I was trying it last night. Thanks for your help!

[CaseyB]

After using it for only about 20 minutes it slowed down to 1Mb/s! It still had all the correct DNS info, but it was just extremely slow. It remained like that through several reboots and I finally just plugged it back into the wired internet.

[CelticBlues]

What does "cut the firmware" mean?
Ed

Hello CaseyB

Whether your card will work or not first comes down, with the b43 driver, to if you have cut the firmware?

If you have it depends on which broadcom card you have:

/sbin/lspci

from the command line will tell us that.

Generally if you have done one and your card is supported, there are two ways of controlling wireless cards in Fedora, Network Configuration which you are showing and NetworkManager which runs automatically after an install from CD but not necessarily from DVD.

The two methods of controlling wireless cards conflict if they are both running. The usual advice unless you need static ip addresses is to use NetwokManager as it makes managing wireless encryption keys easy.

Below is a general set of instructions for running with NetworkManager.



Post back if you have any questions.

[CaseyB]

You download the firmware for your card and then run the b43-fwcutter on it. This will break the firmware into pieces and put them in the /lib/firmware directory so your wireless card can find it.