# Dell 1470 wireless problems [SOLVED] (mostly)

## magfrump

I recently got a laptop (a Dell Inspiron B130) and, as a matter of course, installed Gentoo on it.

So far, so good except for wireless.  It has the Dell 1470 wireless card (which is actually the Broadcom 4318).  Searching the forums, I found two other persons who had trouble with this wireless card:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-451223-highlight-1470.html

This poor guy, who noone replied to, and

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-382170-highlight-dell+1470.html

This guy, who seemed to get it working until he upgraded to the 2.6.13 kernel.

I'm currently running a 2.6.16 kernel, and I'm using bcmwl5a drivers (as per second thread) which ndiswrapper seems happy with (i.e. ndiswrapper -l returns driver present, hardware present), however I still have no wlan0--only eth0 and lo.

This is the first computer with wireless I've ever worked on, so the problem may be in the various wireless configuration files, since I don't know how these work.

Thanks

-Mitchell

EDIT: Solution: kernel support for Broadcom 4318 is now available.

Learn about it: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-409194-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html

(I haven't tested it but I have faith in the devs)Last edited by magfrump on Tue Jun 20, 2006 5:07 am; edited 1 time in total

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## vman

I just got the driver loaded on my new Dell B130 with the 1470 wireless card option and didn't get a problem at all. However, you won't see it using ifconfig - you need to use iwconfig like this:

```
DellGentoo DRIVER # iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated

          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm

          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management: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

```

Of course, my Buffalo router isn't in from NewEgg just yet so I've yet to test it or finish fiddling with the WPA and all that jaz. Soon, I hope. For now, it's network wires draped across the house.   :Confused: 

From the instructions at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation, I opted to use the second set of drivers from the Dell ftp page listed in the section for the Dell 1470: http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE - zero problems so far and /var/log/messages indicates successful driver loading. Fingers crossed!

BTW - Gentoo kicks *$@&$# on this laptop!!! Wife got identical - but left WinXP on - methinks Gentoo is a bit faster on this than WinXP. It was so gratifying to fdisk WinXP into oblivion. I got the wide-screen option with 80gig hd, 1 gig of ram and the DVD-R/RW from an advert in a mag (a bit unlike their normal B130) - a very nice and economical laptop! 3D sucks, but then I don't do a lot of 3D on this anyway. I cheated on the wide-screen. Installed and started 855resolution set to 1280x800, but xconfig was still giving me a headache. Just for kicks, I loaded up the Ubuntu 6 liveCD and it loaded perfectly - so I just copied their xorg.conf to my hd, edited the Font directories and am running with that config in Gentoo for now. Video from Totem or Gxine doesn't work well - colors are way off - will need to tweak that. 3D works so-so as long as there's not a lot of texturing tho with the Gears xscreensaver I'm still only getting 26fps (windowed glxgears gives me 750fps). Networking set itself up pretty much - I use a Gentoo dhcp server/gateway/firewall for my network. I got the battery indicator to work with acpi - still need to figure out how to get the screen back when I close it - it blanks out tho I'm still up and running. When I open the screen, it's still blank and fiddling with the keys don't do anything. First laptop for me tho - never needed acpi before... Tweaking is needed for certain, but I can use the laptop just fine. Getting wireless will be icing!

Be well,

Mike

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## magfrump

Thanks for replying--I used the first set of drivers, because I couldn't get the second set unzipped--while I'm on a network w/ Windows boxes I'll try to get them.

I agree, gentoo runs great on this laptop--everything but the wireless and sound have worked perfectly--although when I close the laptop then open it while it's on, it can't seem to find the screen again.  Have you seen that at all?

Will post again after trying second set of drivers.

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## vman

I tried cabextract and unshield on it to no avail. In a fit of frustration, I tried unzip on it and guess what - it worked! Sheesh! Go to the DRIVERS directory and you'll find your inf file.

Have fun,

Mike

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## vman

I also cannot get the screen working again after reopening it. I closed it last night while compiling openoffice so it wouldn't be so obvious to anyone walking by outside - and saw that the screen blanked. But - hd activity was continuing, indicating that openoffice was still compiling, so I didn't fiddle with it. This morning it was done compiling (no hd activity) so I tried a number of keys to no avail - screen remained blank. So, powered down and powered back up. Sigh. Will have to dig into acpi and see what I can do with this...

Good luck,

Mike

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## magfrump

I extracted it on a windows box, then used PSFTP to bring the drivers over--but I'm still not getting a wireless device from iwconfig.

It seems that ndiswrapper is failing somewhere--after following the instructions at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation I run dmesg | grep ndis and get:

```
ndiswrapper version 1.2 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)

ndiswrapper (import:245): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:strrchr

ndiswrapper (import:245): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:MmFreeContiguousMemorySpecifyCache

ndiswrapper (import:245): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:MmAllocateContiguousMemorySpecifyCache

ndiswrapper (import:245): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:MmGetPhysicalAddress

ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:520): unable to prepare driver 'bcmwl5'

Modules linked in: ndiswrapper snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_seq_dummy snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi_                            event snd_seq snd_seq_device pcspkr ehci_hcd uhci_hcd rtc usbcore joydev

EIP is at unload_ndis_driver+0x91/0xe0 [ndiswrapper]

Process loadndisdriver (pid: 10426, threadinfo=f2a84000 task=f252b030)

 [<f8aecfee>] load_ndis_driver+0x12e/0x250 [ndiswrapper]

 [<f8aed788>] wrapper_ioctl+0x78/0xe0 [ndiswrapper]

 <3>ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper_load_driver:93): loadndiswrapper failed (11); check system log for                             messages from 'loadndisdriver'

```

when I run depmod -a and modprobe ndiswrapper I get no errors, and I don't know what logfile I should be looking at.  Any ideas?[/code]

EDIT: bolded inline code for clarity

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## vman

I'll have to dig to find the source, but I seem to recall that ndiswrapper didn't work so well if compiled with gcc 4 - I kept my box to the latest 3.4 just for that. I also made sure I compiled ndiswrapper with the same version of gcc that I did the kernel. However - the gcc4 problem could have been just that - from a binary distribution with a kernel from 3.4 and a newer gcc compiling ndiswrapper. It is, after all, a kernel module. Dunno if that helps tho. I'm trying to think of any special kernel parameters I used. I've been copying my old 2.6 configs from system to system and then tweaking them for the new system that it's hard to keep track of...   :Confused:   I know under Network Testing I have a few wireless variables set:

```

# Network testing

#

# CONFIG_NET_PKTGEN is not set

# CONFIG_HAMRADIO is not set

# CONFIG_IRDA is not set

# CONFIG_BT is not set

CONFIG_IEEE80211=m

# CONFIG_IEEE80211_DEBUG is not set

CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_WEP=m

CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_CCMP=m

CONFIG_IEEE80211_CRYPT_TKIP=m

```

Plus I think I enabled as a module nearly every wireless option there was in there. Heh - I'm guessing as much as you are.  :Smile:  Wired networking is so simple - I'm still trying to get a handle on a lot of the wireless terminology from essid, ssid, wep, wpa, passphrases, etc... Geez - makes me want to go back and write iptables scripts!

I'm trying to go the iwconfig route for setting up my network rather than wpa_supplicant - even got a little net.wlan0 linked to /etc/conf.d/net - but still tweaking the script and waiting for the router to finally test it. Currently, I'm a war-drivers wet dream.  :Smile: 

I'll keep my eyes open. Hopefully an expert will come bail both of us out...

Be well,

Mike

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## GNUtoo

broadcom 43xx are suported in the 2.6.17 kernel

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## vman

What? And I was feeling so proud of myself for getting ndiswrapper to work and my little wireless light to shine! Sigh... Is it enabled as a module by default or am I going to have to hunt thru menuconfig to find it? I've been recycling my 2.6 config - copying it over to genkernel - should I start from scratch or will it automagically show up?

Cheers,

Mike

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## vman

Oops - found the answer here:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-409194-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html

According to this, http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ - support may still be a bit sketchy - especially WPA which may still be under development. Promising tho...

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## magfrump

yes, the 4318 that it mentions is the 1470 (stupid Dell, renaming all their components).  But if it functions at a lower speed, that still counts as functioning.  Will post a [solved] (kind of).

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## vman

Cool. How well is it working for you? I'll stick with ndiswrapper for now and upgrade to native after a bit. I'm interested in seeing how the native WPA2 capabilities develops. Now it's just a matter of setting up the wireless router tomorrow and trying out the scripts. The neighbors have wireless, but they've wisely enabled WPA so I can't get on.  :Smile: 

I solved the screen-blanking issue using the recommendation on the ACPI section of this page:

http://beta.phys.uh.edu/~afritz/d800/gentoo-d800.html

In addition to his acpi scripts (requires you emerge and run acpid and be sure to rc-update acpid too) I added 

```
xhost +local:
```

 just before the 

```
end 0
```

 in /etc/X11/gdm/Init/Default

Not sure if the cpu part of his little perl script applies to us and it may be a little dated - 2.6 has better suspend support than 2.4 so I'm thinking of cutting it out, but it's not in the way currently that I know of. It's very nice being able to close the lid and have the backlight shut off without having to shut down the system...

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## magfrump

I still haven't got any sort of wireless.  I just picked up a copy of NeverWinter Nights, so that's been my focus today.

Thanks for the ACPI tip, tho, I'll check that out.

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## vman

If your kernel compiled the drm and i915 module then you're set for 3D so long as your xorg.conf is happy - just load the modules and play. It's not a killer 3D game system and you'll see a set of warnings if you start the game from command line - ignore them - it's in bugs and being worked on and doesn't affect anything. I think the last thing I have to do is tweak the synaptics touchpad so I have vertical and horizontal scrolling and whatnot...

Can't think of anything offhand about the wireless. You could try unloading the kernel module and reloading ndiswrapper and giving that a go again perhaps.

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## vman

Got Buffalo in today and set up in a few minutes. I put it between the firewall and the dsl bridge - and used the MAC from the firewall eth rather than Buffalo MAC to connect (dsl router seems to only respond to that MAC). Nevertheless - got traffic up and going on that, preserving my wired network internet access, and promptly set about configuring the wireless. 

I verified that the wireless was working from my wife's Dell. Peachy. On my Dell, I installed the Gnome NetManager but was having problems with it hijacking my eth0 ip address (it would get an addy from my firewall, then it would suddenly change to something else entirely! I'd have to turn it off and restart net.eth0 to get access back), so I disabled it for now and just used the plain ol' iwconfig method of configuring the /etc/conf.d/wireless and linking net.wlan0 to net.lo and with a prayer, restarted net.wlan0. DHCP went thru quickly enough and now I'm typing this completely independant of wires. I used kernel 2.6.16-gentoo-r10 with wireless networking enabled and can post my config if needed (got too much crap in there enabled but they're modules so I'm not too worried for now - will pare it down to a bare minimum later on). Driver for 1470 is the second one recommended in the ndiswrapper list for our laptop, downloaded from Dell ftp server, plain ol' unzipped (no cabextract needed for that exe file) and taken from the DRIVER directory (unzip it into a directory for it - it doesn't make it's own directory). ndiswrapper is the latest. In fact, my system is entirely on the ~x86 branch. I just used basic 128bit WEP for now until I get more familiar with wireless networking - but we're in the sticks so I'm not too worried about wardrivers.  I really don't know what else I can put in here to help you get your wireless up and running. Our hardware is likely pretty much identical, but when compiling your own system, hardware is where similarity ends so there's any number of things that could be needing tweaking...

Ooh - Synaptics scroll on side and bottom is king! I can scroll a page with the touchpad now! I'll post my xorg.conf if you need - took it from the Ubuntu xorg.conf and modified it for my needs.

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## magfrump

I just broke X the other day, so I'm doing a complete reinstall--unless you have a hard drive image I don't think anything could help me for a while.  (:

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## vman

Ouch. Well - perfect oportunity to redo things based on your prior and hard-earned experience. Hopefully this time around it works okay. I used the latest Ubuntu LiveCD to make me an xorg.conf that worked so I never had to wrestle with configuring X for our strange wide-screen. Of course, I have 855resolution installed. I hope ndiswrapper works for you this time...

Good luck,

Mike

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