# iwl3945 not working (bad EEPROM signature)

## Pond247

The wireless chip of my notebook (an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG) is not usable anymore. 

This means no device /dev/wlan0 is created and dmesg gives the following output:

 *Quote:*   

> iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2011 Intel Corporation
> 
> iwl3945 0000:0c:00.0: bad EEPROM signature,EEPROM_GP=0x00000000
> 
> iwl3945 0000:0c:00.0: EEPROM not found, EEPROM_GP=0x10000000
> ...

 

It is found and identified correctly by lspci. When booting Windows, it tries to find drivers for a "new network device", but is unable to find any. So there seems to be something odd near/on the hardware level. 

When I googled for the problem I only found dmesg outputs, that implied something is wrong with the firmware. Even though this statement is missing in my case, I tried different versions of sys-firmware/iwl3945-ucode (now 15.32.2.9) and the kernel (now gentoo-sources-3.7.4).

I usually use a wired network connection and the last use of wifi was over a month ago so I cannot tell, what I might have done/updated when the problem occurred.

Is there any way to find out whether the the error can be recovered?

Thank you!

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## audiodef

Windows is pretty good about these things. If Windows and manual configuring in Gentoo are unable to get the device working and you see hardware errors, then there's probably nothing you can do except replace it. Before you do that, though, open up the panel on the bottom of your laptop and make sure it's securely plugged in and both wires are attached correctly. Take it out completely and put it back in. If you still have these errors, you probably need a new wireless chip.

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