# Unable to detect wireless networks

## surdy

Hi

I am new to Gentoo. I just installed Gentoo with KDE on my system. I cannot seem to get wireless networking working.

I have installed NetworkManager and nm-applet and set the policies for the user to be able to access these  ( as directed on the Gentoo NetworkManager wiki). I am unable to view any wireless networks on the nm-applet. 

I did 

```
ifconfig -a
```

 it did show my wireless card there as wlan0 ( I have Intel-3945abg wireless card).

After that I tried

```
iwlist scan
```

 Which resulted in :

```
 wlan0         Interface doesn't support scanning: Network is down
```

Can someone help me troubleshoot this ? 

I googled around and a bit and on some forums people asked to check if the interface was hard/soft blocked so I checked for that 

```
rfkill list
```

 gave:

```

0: phy0: Wireless LAN

        Soft blocked: no

        Hard blocked: no

```

Don't know why but I also tried 

```
ifconfig wlan0 up
```

 which gave :

```
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
```

----------

## cach0rr0

have you already merged the firmware for that card? 

I'd wager if you check dmesg, it will complain about being unable to load the firmware for that card. 

Need to emerge this:

```

* net-wireless/iwl3945-ucode

     Available versions:  

        (0)     2.14.1.5 15.28.1.6 15.28.1.8

        (1)     (~)15.28.2.8 15.32.2.9

     Homepage:            http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi

     Description:         Intel (R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection ucode

```

----------

## surdy

Spot on solution.  It worked for me.   :Very Happy: 

Thanks a lot   :Very Happy: 

----------

