# Wireless Problems.

## TheBagman

Hello, I am having problems with getting my wireless working and connecting to my router with my new Dell Lattitude laptop.  It has a Broadcom wireless card, and I am using ndiswrapper for the driver, and the it is being detected as eth1.  Trying to use wireless tools to get it to connect.  If I run iwlist et1 scan it shows my router there.

Here is my /etc/conf.d/net.

```

# This blank configuration will automatically use DHCP for any net.*

# scripts in /etc/init.d.  To create a more complete configuration,

# please review /etc/conf.d/net.example and save your configuration

# in /etc/conf.d/net (this file :]!).

iwconfig_eth1="power on"

modules=( "iwconfig" )

key_dustin420="[1] SED349C8354A83FBB65614186C key [1] enc restricted"

preferred_aps=( "dustin420" )

associate_order=( "preferredonly" )

config_dustin420=( "dhcp" )

```

dustin420 is my SSID, and SED349C8354A83FBB65614186C is my hex key.

When rebooting we get this error on the boot messages:

```

Starting eth1

Configuring wireless network for eth1

Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 22 of Wireless extension, while this program supports up to version 20.  Some things may be broken...

Error fore wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :

SET failed on device eth1 : invalid argument.

et1 does not support setting keys

or the paramter "mac_key_dustin420" or "key_dustin420" is incorrect

Couldn't associate with any access points on eth1

Failed to configure wireless for eth1

```

We try and run these commands to start it manually.

```

iwconfig eth1 mode Managed

iwconfig eth1 essid dustin420

iwconfig eth1 key restricted SED349C8354A83FBB65614186C

```

After that, I try iwconfig et1 and it shows everything correctly as the mode being managed and they encryption key being there, but in the ESSID it says 'off/any'.  We have restarted and stopped eth1 and tryed again and still no luck.

We also try changing restricted to open.

Here is the drivers enabled in the kernel.

```

[*] Network device support

[*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions

```

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks for your time.

----------

## didymos

 *TheBagman wrote:*   

> :
> 
> ```
> 
> Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 22 of Wireless extension, while this program supports up to version 20.  Some things may be broken...
> ...

 

Wireless Extensions 22 and 20? The current stable package is WExt 27, and the latest kernels are up to 29 while the stable gentoo-sources is at 27, I think.  Post emerge --info and the version of wireless-tools you have installed.

----------

## TheBagman

 *didymos wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Wireless Extensions 22 and 20? The current stable package is WExt 27, and the latest kernels are up to 29 while the stable gentoo-sources is at 27, I think.  Post emerge --info and the version of wireless-tools you have installed.

 

Thanks for the response.  

The version of wireless-tools is 28.

Here's emerge --info:

```
Portage 2.1.2.9 (default-linux/x86/2007.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r4, 2.6.21-gentoo-r4 i686)

=================================================================

System uname: 2.6.21-gentoo-r4 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5500 @ 1.66GHz

Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9

Timestamp of tree: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:00:01 +0000

dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.33-r1

dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r4

dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5

sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17

sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61

sys-devel/automake:  1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10

sys-devel/binutils:  2.17

sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16

sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.23b

virtual/os-headers:  2.6.21

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"

AUTOCLEAN="yes"

CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -fomit-frame-pointer -mfpmath=sse"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/terminfo"

CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe -momit-leaf-frame-pointer -fomit-frame-pointer -mfpmath=sse"

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FEATURES="distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.ucsb.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/gentoo/ "

MAKEOPTS="-j3"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

USE="X a52 acl acpi alsa berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dgs dri dvd dvdr flac fortran gdbm gif gpm gtk gtk2 iconv ipv6 isdnlog jpeg kde libg++ lm_sensors midi mmap mmx mono mozilla mp3 mpeg mplayer mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg openmp pam pcre pdf perl pmu png pppd python qt qt4 readline reflection session speex spell spl sse sse2 ssl tcpd tiff truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode win32codecs x86 xcb xine xorg yahoo zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="i810"

Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
```

----------

## didymos

There is a native linux driver for bcm43xx cards in the 2.6.21 kernel.  It has these deps:

```

Depends on: NET && NETDEVICES && PCI && IEEE80211 && IEEE80211_SOFTMAC && NET_RADIO && EXPERIMENTAL

```

You probably just need to enable "Software MAC add-on to the IEEE 802.11 networking stack" to get it to show up. Have you tried using that yet (if your card is of that type)?  Oh, yeah: and change the hex key.  Now anyone reading the forums has it (which, considering it's a WEP key, isn't really all that much of time saver).

----------

## TheBagman

 *didymos wrote:*   

> There is a native linux driver for bcm43xx cards in the 2.6.21 kernel.  It has these deps:
> 
> ```
> 
> Depends on: NET && NETDEVICES && PCI && IEEE80211 && IEEE80211_SOFTMAC && NET_RADIO && EXPERIMENTAL
> ...

 

We were having problems with those drivers too.  So we switched to ndiswrapper, and for the life of me I can't recall what the errors were.

----------

## TheBagman

This may be a clue...

dmesg | grep ndiswrapper gives me this..

```
ndiswrapper version 1.44 loaded (smp=yes)

ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,10/12/2006, 4.100.15.5) loaded

ndiswrapper: using IRQ 18

ndiswrapper: changing interface name from '' to 'eth1'

ndiswrapper (wrap_procfs_add_ndis_device:374): eth1 already registered?

ndiswrapper (iw_set_wep:909): key 1 is not set
```

I also tried using my router without any encryption at all and it still won't set the ESSID.

----------

## didymos

What does ifconfig show? And you may as well post /etc/conf.d/net.

----------

## TheBagman

Here is the output of ifconfig::

```
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:B9:7E:38:52  

          inet addr:192.168.1.102  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          inet6 addr: fe80::219:b9ff:fe7e:3852/64 Scope:Link

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:389 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:79 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 

          RX bytes:238025 (232.4 Kb)  TX bytes:6913 (6.7 Kb)

          Interrupt:18 

 

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:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 

          RX bytes:100 (100.0 b)  TX bytes:100 (100.0 b)
```

Also, /etc/conf.d/net:

```
# This blank configuration will automatically use DHCP for any net.*

# scripts in /etc/init.d.  To create a more complete configuration,

# please review /etc/conf.d/net.example and save your configuration

# in /etc/conf.d/net (this file :]!).

iwconfig_eth1="power on"

modules=( "iwconfig" )

key_dustin420="[1] SED349C8354A83FBB65614186C key [1] enc restricted"

preferred_aps=( "dustin420" )

associate_order=( "preferredonly" )

config_dustin420=( "dhcp" )
```

----------

## didymos

I forgot you already posted /etc/conf.d/net. Ok, so I guess you're just using the default dhcp config for eth0. Umm, noticed something about that hex key:  It's not.

S<----ED349C8354A83FBB65614186C

S is not a valid hex digit. Only these are allowed: 0123456789ABCDEF.  I thought it was a '5' until just now.

----------

## TheBagman

 *didymos wrote:*   

> I forgot you already posted /etc/conf.d/net. Ok, so I guess you're just using the default dhcp config for eth0. Umm, noticed something about that hex key:  It's not.
> 
> S<----ED349C8354A83FBB65614186C
> 
> S is not a valid hex digit. Only these are allowed: 0123456789ABCDEF.  I thought it was a '5' until just now.

 

lol, silly me.  I made that change.  Reinstalled the drivers with ndiswrapper, and tried again with no luck.  Still not keeping the ESSID when I type iwconfig eth1 essid dustin420.

----------

## TheBagman

 *TheBagman wrote:*   

>  *didymos wrote:*   I forgot you already posted /etc/conf.d/net. Ok, so I guess you're just using the default dhcp config for eth0. Umm, noticed something about that hex key:  It's not.
> 
> S<----ED349C8354A83FBB65614186C
> 
> S is not a valid hex digit. Only these are allowed: 0123456789ABCDEF.  I thought it was a '5' until just now. 
> ...

 

Thanks for your help didymos.  I got this fixed by disabling my MAC address filter on my router.  but, I was able to get that working by editing my ndiswrapper config file.

----------

## glee_

Hello, I'm a noob and I wondering if someone could help me.

I've spent countless hours trying to get my Broadcom BCM94311 wireless card to work. I'm running Sabayon on my Compaq Presario C500.

First, I downloaded the bcm43xx tarball and extracted it. 

I try to do the next step that I read on various forums and this happens:

```

localhost gleeadnauseam # bcm43xx-fwcutter -w bcmwl5.sys

bcm43xx-fwcutter version 006

Usage: bcm43xx-fwcutter [OPTION] [driver.sys]

  -l|--list             List supported driver versions

  -i|--identify         Only identify the driver file (do

n't extract)

  -w|--target-dir DIR   Extract and write firmware to DIR

  -a|--alt-iv           Extract alternative initvals (onl

y 3.10.x.x)

  -p|--postfix ".FOO"   Postfix for firmware filenames (.

FOO.fw)

  -v|--version          Print bcm43xx-fwcutter version

  -h|--help             Print this help

Example: bcm43xx-fwcutter bcmwl5.sys

         to extract the firmware blobs from bcmwl5.sys

localhost gleeadnauseam # bcm43xx-fwcutter bcmwl5.sys

Cannot open input file bcmwl5.sys

```

I really don't know what I'm doing... Should I use ndiswrapper? How do I do this?

I would really appreciate someone's help because I am lost trying to do this on my own.

 - glee_

----------

## fouccault

glee_, burn sabayon 3.4f mini and see if your card works on that live disk.

otherwise find bcm5wl.sys on your windows partition mine was in /swsetup/wlan/

er i mean c:\swsetup\... heheh

ndiswrapper -i /mount/win_c/sw../wlan/bcm5wl.inf

thats all..

oh theres lost of help for ndiswrapper out there but thats basically it.. 

and dont download "tarballs" use portage..

----------

