# ifconfig doesn't show BCM4318 card's interface

## creaker

I'm totally noob in wifi field so need a help to get wifi card working

It is a PCI card

```
01:06.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. WL-138G v2 / WL-138gE / WL-100gE
```

What I did till now: 

SInce kernel has it's own driver for this card, I enabled wifi stuffs in kernel config, built brcmsmac module and loaded it with modprobe, but ifconfig -a doesn't show wireless interface.

I thought it may be module issue and went in other way (following gentoo wiki): emerged sys-firmware/b43-firmware. Though I expected b43 module will built, I can't found it. modprobe says that module not found. But I found brcmutil.ko module and assumed it is a module built by emerge. I modprobed it, but still ifconfig doesn't show wireless interface.

Is it a module issue or is it just broked hardware?

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## creaker

seems I found it, just forgot to build kernel module b43 in addition to firmware.

ifconfig now shows wlan interface.

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## creaker

Somehow getting my card starting. The next trouble is that it can't find any access point.

```
# ip link set wlan0 up

# iw dev wlan0 link

Not connected

# iw dev wlan0 scan

#
```

shows nothing. Though I'm pretty sure there are 5 or 6 wifi access points around.

Have I to do some additional configurations except wpa_supplicant.conf and /etc/conf.d/net ?

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## chithanh

Maybe your wifi is blocked by rfkill. Does your computer have a wifi button or switch?

rfkill can be managed using the controls in /sys/class/rfkill/* or by installing the rfkill package.

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## creaker

It's a PCI card wifi, so no any switches or buttons. 

Interface started by 'ip link set wlan0 up' and it's state is UP.

I installed rfkill to check for blockage:

```
server ~ # rfkill list

0: phy0: Wireless LAN

        Soft blocked: no

        Hard blocked: no
```

Seems not blocked, but can't locate any access point

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## creaker

It turns out wifi scans for AP, but in some strange manner. At first run iw shows nothing, but it recognizes APs if command was running once more immediately. After a some timeout I have to run iw twice again to get output. Looks like card sleeps by default and first scan command awakes it up. Next scan collects AP info. After a while it sleeps again. Hmm.

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