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cant get wifi to work

telltom

Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:48:18 pm

I have a Dell latitude D620 with Zorin OS 5 installed. I can't get wireless to work. It doesn't show up in the network mgr, I have to use the laptop wired.

redundant409

Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:53:37 pm

Does your laptop have a wifi key on the keyboard. for some reason, i have to click mine 2 times before it recognizes the wifi XP

maxmm5

Thu Jun 16, 2011 1:49:29 pm

Hi telltom, Have you tried manually editing the Network Connections? Open it, click the wireless tab, then the +Add button, check the check box "Connect automatically", give a name to your connection and provide your SSID of your wireless connection and hit save button below. Your done.

doctorsteveod

Sat Jun 18, 2011 8:16:32 pm

Hello.
I'm not sure whether to post my issue in this thread or not. I have the same issue under similar circumstances, but I will describe my issue and what I have already done to try and rectify it.

I have a Dell Latitude D820 with a Dell 1390 WLAN wireless receiver. The Broadcom model for this receiver is BCM4311, and is one of the models listed in the supported wireless driver package that needs to be added after installation.

In Zorin OS Core versions 3 and 4 my WiFi receiver worked after I went into "Add Hardware Drivers" and it came up with the Broadcom STA Wireless driver package. I would activate it and presto, WiFi power light turns on and the OS sees my wireless signal.

In this new version, 5, I went through the exact same procedures after installing the OS (64-bit). I had it search for the package and just like before it found it. I clicked on activate and it went through the download and installation. After rebooting (which it said I had to do in order to activate it) the OS would load, however after the desktop appeared the WiFi light did not turn on (and yes, my power switch on the side of the laptop was turned on). Without the power light turning on there was no way for the OS to see my wireless signal. I went into the "Add Hardware Drivers" section again. It showed the driver as being present (active) and IN-USE! Well, the OS may think it is in use, but it isn't!

I even tried some of the other steps recommended in this thread but nothing worked. I tried completely reinstalling the OS from scratch again, going through all of the same steps as before, and I ended up in the same place, no working WiFi. I also tried the option to Install "Windows Wireless Driver" in the control center. I downloaded the driver from Dell and copied the files into a folder on my desktop. I clicked "Add" and found and clicked on the .inf file. It said that it installed the driver and that the hardware was present. However, the WiFi light never came on and there was no wireless connection. I went ahead and deleted the driver afterwards.

It would seem to me that because I had no problems with the WiFi working in previous versions of the OS, something may be wrong with the new driver for OS 5.

Any help in resolving this issue would be appreciated very much. While I can use the OS while connected through a wired connection without any problems, I really need my WiFi accessibility to work.

Thanks for the help!

Sincerely,

Dr. Stephen W. Pardridge

doctorsteveod

Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:03:49 pm

Hello Swarf:

Well, I tried everything you listed in the precise order and still came up with no functional WiFi. To be honest, I didn't think it was going to work because if the driver is functioning properly then the power light for the WiFi would turn on during the OS boot-up.

I mentioned above that I had the WiFi working fine in prior versions of Zorin. I also installed Mandriva One 2010.2 OS and the WiFi worked right out of the box.

There is either a problem with the new Broadcom driver in this version (5) or perhaps it is something going wrong inside the operating system? I have no clue, but would certainly like to get OS 5 up and running with wireless access.

Should I bring this issue to the attention of the support people? Or do you think they will have already read these posts?

Again, thanks for your assistance in getting me up and running wirelessly!

Dr. P.

PS>>> Telltom never posted back and mentioned whether he was succesful in getting his wifi to work. Since we both have Dell Latitudes I would imagine the same driver would probably be in use?

PPS>>>Until I get this resolved I am going back to Core 4 where everything still works!

doctorsteveod

Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:57:41 am

Hi Swarf...

Thanks for the additional info. I took a peek at that link. It looks rather involved, but I can tinker with it when I have more free time.

In the meantime, during the last 24 hours I have reinstalled Core OS4 and am back to enjoying wireless access along with my cool video effects that I love so much. (I am a Windows person for many years.) Their window movements, etc, are so boring compared to Linux. I am also a part time dot net programmer in Visual Basic. I have been a geek for many years and am very comfortable working in the DOS command line in windows. There appears to be some vague familiarity with some of the terminal command line operators, however, I am a total noob to the terminal. It's gonna take me a while to get comfy with that part of the OS, but I am certainly not afraid to try!

Before reinstalling OS 4 I decided to try installing LinuxMint11 64-bit. My WiFi experience in that OS turned out to be exactly the same as with Zorin OS 5. I could not get my WiFi to turn on! It just seems to me like something is up with the Ubuntu 11.04 Broadcom driver. I think I will take your suggestion and refer my issue to customer support. It sounds like they are very responsive to technical issues, so I have hope that this can be fixed somehow by them.

Thanks so much for your continued help. It is greatly appreciated! I'll update here in this thread again once I have more news.

---Doc

zellaronauir

Mon Jul 04, 2011 3:35:27 am

Im running zorin 3 and a hp pavilivon dv 5000 and i followed your instructions on how to make my wifi work and it does now

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

< V

Guy

Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:10:50 am

You can install the bcm43 driver and fwcutter from synaptic. Just type in bcm or broadcom and you will see the related add ons. This just worked for me. I installed the legacy driver also.

Guy

cos-mic

Thu Jan 24, 2013 2:16:41 pm

i installed zorin 6 on my dell D420 .. wifi wouldnt work,saw some of the messages here described..
tried drivers etc but still no dice.
so i hit f2 on startup, entered the bios, browsed to the wireless device , noted that it was disabled , enabled it, and continued with boot still no dice. So i re entered the bios browsed to the device an noted new options, enabled automatic search etc, set the hardware on /of switch to ignore (there is a wifi on/off switch on dell notebooks) saved and booted and there it was "networks available" asked me for security key and i'm in XD.
hope this helps someone

speedracerdt

Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:15:36 am

i am having the same problem it lets me download the driver and says its active but i sill dont have wireless and my light doesn't come on .. i was using mint 10 but needed to upgrade. this was working great on my pc and i love it but i need wireless for my laptop or it is pointless

Tigersong

Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:21:01 pm

I've never configured a network before, so please be patient with me.

My computer is a Toshiba Satellite, model L755. I don't know what wireless card, if any, it has. (Does anyone know how I can find out? Unfortunately I got it used and it didn't come with the manual.)

madvinegar

Tue Jul 07, 2015 6:28:48 am

Open terminal (ctrl+alt+T), run the following command and post the results back here:

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

mosmas

Sat Oct 03, 2015 6:29:55 pm

mine also has the wifi not switching on problem.This are the commands responses;
mosmas@mosmas-HP-635-Notebook-PC:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
06:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:3577]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
07:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:1461]
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
mosmas@mosmas-HP-635-Notebook-PC:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0461:4de7 Primax Electronics, Ltd webcam
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0cf3:3005 Atheros Communications, Inc. AR3011 Bluetooth
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 18a5:0300 Verbatim, Ltd
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 174c:5106 ASMedia Technology Inc. Transcend StoreJet 25M3
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

mosmas@mosmas-HP-635-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo rfkill list all
0: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
2: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
3: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no


Thanks in advance.