Dell Latitude D600 (BCM5705M wired and BCM4306 wireless issues)

waramoore · #1 3rd May 2009, 10:33 AM

First off with the basics:

Code:

[Walter@localhost ~]$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
[Walter@localhost ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet (rev 01)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711EC1 SmartCardBus Controller (rev 20)
02:01.1 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711EC1 SmartCardBus Controller (rev 20)
02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LANController (rev 03)

No wireless or wired internet at all. Drivers?? I am running Fedora 11. the newest one. would the drivers that work for Linux Mint also work for Fedora?

***bob*** · #2 3rd May 2009, 11:08 AM

(moved to Alpha, Beta, Snapshot)

GODhack · #3 3rd May 2009, 11:18 AM

I think use Fedora10 not 11.
Use ndiswrapper and windows drivers for wireless.

Moral is: * Broadcom Corporation trough mail.

scottro · #4 3rd May 2009, 11:28 AM

I've edited the topic so that you're more likely to get views from people who can help.

As laptop manufacturers often change hardware, one is more likely to get views from people with the same hardware if you put the wireless (and in your case, wired) card information than if you put the laptop model.

bbfuller · #5 3rd May 2009, 12:56 PM

Hello waramoore

Welcome to the forum.

I'm not familiar with the wired internet chip in your laptop, but if it is the same generation as the 4306 wireless card, and Linux lists it in the lspci output I'm surprised it doesn't work.

I've certainly talked several people on these forums through getting the 4306 wireless to work and I'll happily post up some notes for you if you wish. I'll be easier though if we have a wired connection working first.

What is your wired ethernet connecting to? Is it a router that issues ip addresses by dhcp, or is it an ethernet modem where the ip address is allocated by your isp?

What is the output of:

Code:

/sbin/ifconfig

If you left click on NetworkManager, does it identify the card?

waramoore · #6 3rd May 2009, 07:11 PM

The reasion why I posted the Laptop model is because the Wireless card and Wired card , and video are all integrated on the motherboard, so unless you soulder it outa there and find something that fits its almsot a do or die situation. but the card info are as the followings:

Code:

eth0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0F:1F:B8:ED:B1
           inet6 addr: fe80::20f:1fff:feb8:edb1/64 Scope:Link
           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500  METRIC:1
           RX packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:30 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:8511 (8.3KiB)  TX bytes:3156 (3.0 KiB)
           Interrupt:11

lo         Link encap:Local Loopback
           inet addr: 127.0.0.1  Mask 255.0.0.0
           inet6 addr:  ::1/128  Scope:Host
           UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
           RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
            RX bytes:560 (560.0 b)  TX bytes:560 (560.0 b)

and another annomily is happening- I just booted my mechine, and the text like the names of folders, apps, windows and all are f*** up idk how else to describe it, anyone else have that problem?

oh and my wired connection is to my moms computer, should i do it directly to the router??

bbfuller · #7 3rd May 2009, 07:35 PM

Hello waramoore

Yes, I'd definitely try connecting your laptop directly to the router. Otherwise, you have to configure the remote computer to behave like a router and my guess is that the owner of the computer is not going to be very happy about that.

Give it a try, you may well find that you can connect directly to the internet then. Post back the results of ifconfig again if not.

The reason we asked for the chipset details is that the software you install to enable networking is dependant on the chipset, so we needed to know in order to advise.

Manufacturers often put different chipsets in laptops of the same model number.

waramoore · #8 3rd May 2009, 07:42 PM

:-( I feel so stupid, I pluged it right in directly to the router, and BOOM!, wired works. scoping through the wonderful wile web. results:

Code:

eth0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0F:1F:B8:ED:B1
           inet addr:192.168.1.66 Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
           inet6 addr: fe80::20f:1fff:feb8:edb1/64 Scope:Link
           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500  METRIC:1
           RX packets:2632 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:3939 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:1715143 (1.6 MiB)  TX bytes:504607 (492.7 KiB)
           Interrupt:11

lo         Link encap:Local Loopback
           inet addr: 127.0.0.1  Mask 255.0.0.0
           inet6 addr:  ::1/128  Scope:Host
           UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
           RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
            RX bytes:3093 (3.0 KiB)  TX bytes:3093 (3.0 KiB)

now... wired works. how about wireless?

bbfuller · #9 3rd May 2009, 08:19 PM

Hello waramoore

Wireless is more complicated, especially for the 4306 chip that your laptop has.

Fedora includes a driver for that chipset but requires "firmware" to be downloaded and installed before it will work.

The 4306 chipset has two different versions, depending on which one you have, you will need different firmware.

Luckily the driver, called b43, should determine which variant of the chipset you have and load either "b43" or "b43-legacy". We need to determine which is loading.

Run the command:

Code:

lsmod | grep b43

as root. Post back the results. That will tell us what we need to do for the next step.

By the way. "lsmod" lists loaded modules. The vertical bar tell the command to pipe its output through the next command which is "grep". The grep command matches the output against "b43" and only prints out the answers that contain that string.

waramoore · #10 3rd May 2009, 09:34 PM

Code:

[Walter@localhost ~]$ lsmod | grep b43
b43                   111040  0
mac80211              164984  1 b43
cfg80211               30788  2 b43,mac80211
input_polldev           3076  1 b43
ssb                    33504  1 b43

Thanks for the help so far. Im currently on the internet wired. Thanks for the explination of the code. i knew the lspci and lsusb commands, Im so used to running ipconfig or other batch files in windows.

bbfuller · #11 3rd May 2009, 10:08 PM

Hello waramoore

That's the later of the two types of 4306 then using the b43 module not the b43-legacy.

For that card you need to do this:

Quote:

Download this file and put it into a directory somewhere:

http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/b...0.10.5.tar.bz2

Acquire full root rights over your machine with this command in a terminal window:

Code:

su -

That's a space and a minus sign after the su. It gives you full root rights over your machine rather than just root rights over your ordinary users environment without it.

Use the cd command to navigate into the directory where you downloaded the above file. Issue the command:

Code:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

That unpacks the file archive you downloaded and will create you a new directory where you are working called 'broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5'.

cd into that and then the 'driver' directory within that and use the command:

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o

That cuts the required firmware for your card from the downloaded file and places it in the correct place for the b43 driver to find it.

After that you should only need to restart the machine and NetworkManager, the icon in the system tray, should be listing available wireless networks. Click on one to be prompted for your encryption key and that should be it.

Make sure you do use NetworkManager though, there is one other way to control a network card and that is through the Network Configuration item on the Administration Menu. That is not the way to go. It will fail by default and is very difficult to set up for WPA encryption.

Post back with any questions or problems - or hopefully a report of success.

waramoore · #12 4th May 2009, 04:44 AM

wow this is more frustrating than what I thought. my DCHP is 192.168.1.125 ip is 192.168.1.110 AP: 00:1C:10:61:22:A0 SSID: 2WIRE576 and my bssid is 00:22:A4:4B:F8:E9

How do I enter it in Network connectionshen I create a new wireless...

Oh and the

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o

didnt work this was the errornor

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o
cannot open input fillw wl_apsta_mimo.o

bbfuller · #13 4th May 2009, 09:12 AM

Hello waramoore

I can assure you that these notes do work. I use them every time I use the b43 driver for my broadcom 4318 card and I've used them with quite a few other people with various broadcom cards including the 4306.

You won't get anywhere trying to create a link to a wireless network without this firmware installed, when you have it installed all the rest is done automatically for you.

Your code output leads me to believe you haven't used the cd command correctly to enter the directory where you have stored the broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 file.

Do remember when you work through this that in linux all commands and directory names are case sensitive. If the command demands a capital letter and you type a small one it fails. The same for file names and paths.

Let's expand the notes a bit. Not surprisingly, I have a user of bbfuller on this computer. Lets suppose I downloaded the "broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2" file into that users Download directory.

I would use the command:

Code:

cd /home/bbfuller/Download

to move into that directory and then possibly:

Code:

ls

to list the contents to assure myself I'm in the right place.

Then the command:

Code:

tar xjf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

would extract the files from that archive and put them in a directory of its own in Download called:

Code:

broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5

The file I want will be in a sub-directory of that called "driver". So to get there I would use the command:

Code:

cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver

Note there is no leading slash this time, I'm specifying a path relative to where I'm located, not from the top of the directory/file system.

Then I'd use the command:

Code:

b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta_mimo.o

That would give output like:

Quote:

This file is recognised as:
ID : FW13
filename : wl_apsta_mimo.o
version : 410.2160
MD5 : cb8d70972b885b1f8883b943c0261a3c
Extracting b43/pcm5.fw
Extracting b43/pcm4.fw
Extracting b43/ucode15.fw
Extracting b43/ucode14.fw
Extracting b43/ucode13.fw

and some two dozen other lines as well.

Then I'd reboot. Then I'd locate the NetworkManager icon in the system tray of either Gnome or KDE, left click on it, and expect to be presented with a list of available wireless networks waiting for me to left click on mine.

You "may" be unlucky if your card is a really odd one and isn't recognised, though it should be from the model number. But I know the instructions work because I used them last week when I reinstalled on my laptop.

Give them a go and come back with questions or problems.

waramoore · #14 4th May 2009, 01:20 PM

ok I'm new to the whole linux commands. but atleast cd is the same or id be completely lost.. Thanks so much it really did help, I just wasnt paying attention..

once i downloaded it into firmware, and rebooted... it showed me all the connections around me. thanks for helping

bbfuller · #15 4th May 2009, 01:34 PM

That's good news.

Enjoy the wireless.