Artheros Wireless card cannot be enabled "wireless is disabled by hardware switch"

[chris2kari]

lspci reports model :AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

Fedora 17, Toshiba Satellite L730.

It is detected but cannot be turned on in network manager giving an error stating "wireless is disabled by hardware switch".

It has NO hardware switch, only a keyboard shortcut (FN/F8 in this case) which works in Windows _of course_...

I googled and discovered a command line utility called rfkill, missing from default install of FC17 _of_course_...

It reports :

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

I ran :

rfkill unblock all

but it keeps reporting same hard blocked.

I tried toggling the FN/F8 key & then repeat the kill all but keeps reporting same hard blocked.

There is no BIOS setting to enable. There is no physical switch to enable.

Im out of ideas?

Chris

[mustafajava]

Hello,

Problem solved!!!! I was faced with the same problem on my Toshiba C655 which also uses the AR9285, commonly used by Toshiba. It seems that on these laptops there is no hardware switch while Fedora and most Linux distributions report it as hardware disabled (no option in BIOS as well)

The solution is to have it running under Windows and:

1. Under device manager choose the Atheros AR9285 Wirless LAN
2. Under Power Management, disable the "Allow Windows to switch off deivice for power saving"


Then reboot back to Fedora and it will be completely active!!!

[chris2kari]

Thanks!
Hard to confirm this exactly because I have no installation media & the Windows recovery partitions have long since been deleted.

1) I download the Win8 preview & Iinstalled it. It claimed to have the most up to date drivers. Interestingly Win8 identifies it as Qualcom Artheros AR9002WB chipset. i could not activate the Wifi hardware in software (Win8) or hardware (Function/F8 key)

2) I did as you said and deactivated the power saving in device manager of Win8 but _STILL_ i could not activate the Wifi hardware in software (Win8) or hardware (Function/F8 key) even after reboot.

3) I then downloaded a Win7 driver specifically for this Model Lapppy and installed it (I also flashed the BIOS for good measure).
With the proprietary driver from Toshiba I was immediately able to switch the Wifi off/on with the Win8 software & the FN?F8 key.

I left it switched on & reinstalled FC17 where the hardware is now active & able to be used. I don't dare try to turn it off...... ahem

P.S. I see that Toshiba had a Linux support area for previous modles. I contaced them and asked for the keymapping to activate the Wifi so that I could patch Linux to work but was told it's hush hush secret. It appears their newest models (like mine) are supported in Windows only now.

Cheers

[mustafajava]

I'm pleased to hear that your problem is solved.

Mustafa