# compaq wireless broadcom :(

## archsvile

Hi I have a Compaq V3000 and it has a broadcom wireless card   :Sad:  ... i've tried everything to get it working on linux so im frustrated with it. I saw they have atheros wireless mini pci cards that i can replace the broadcom with. But I've heard hp stops you from putting in a new wireless card. Is this true? has anyone else put a atheros wireless mini pci card in there hp/compaq and it worked?

Thanks

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## .:chrome:.

the broadcom card works fine with ndiswrapper ad the windows driver

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## kill

It is true that HP prevents you form chaning the internal wireless card to any that are not authroized.  You options are get a PCMCIA wireless card or dump the BIOS, change the check for the mini pci card to always return true and flash the laptop. I would go with the first idea if I were you.

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## Fassan

I just got one of these laptops and was wondering if you ever got the wireless working- either with a set of windows drivers (and which one) or with the bcm43xx.

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## rullzer

wich chipset does it use? bcm43xx working really nice with the bcm43xx drivers

rullz

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## Fassan

It is the bcm4311, which I have found many guides on.  Well, for clarification under ubuntu it lists itself as the bcm4311 and under gentoo as the Dell 1390, but I think that's basically the same.  (was using ubuntu for testing purposes)  Anyway, no matter which firmware I try to install using fwcutter, nothing happens.  By this I mean that the firmware does get installed into /lib/firmware, but modprobe bcm43xx does nothing.  it loads the module, and dmesg only gives me a line about bcm43xx module.  After that, no new eth* interface, no wireless.  If anyone knows why this is, it would be beautiful information to me.

Thanks

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## rullzer

when you do modprobe bcm43xx what does iwconfig drop...

and are there anyerror in your logs when modprobing the module?

rullz

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## addeman

Well, most broadcom's work with ndiswrapper. A few older models work with the bcm43xx. For more info on the latter see here

Be a bit careful with the version of ndiswrapper you try: I cant get my bcm4318 to work with ndiswrapper-1.16/1.17. Version 1.15 works just fine though. Be sure to get the right windows driver (32 or 64 bit...)

Best regards

addeman

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## Fassan

can't get bcm43xx to work at all, I think that the 4311 might still not be supported by that driver.  I did manage to get ndiswrapper working with the latest drivers from compaq - because at least there were 64bit ones.  I am having other wireless woes, which may be from the wrapper and may be from something else...  Basically, wireless starts out fine, and then will eventually drop down each level from 54 to 36 to24, etc. until it reaches 1 Mbit.  Then it stays a long time down at 1 Mbit, then will come back up to usefull speeds a bit, but then will drop back down.  The worst is that it spends very little time up at 54 or 36, and tons of time down at 1 Mbit.  When I run iwconfig, I notice that two numbers keep going up - on the bottom row, they are 'excessive tx requests' and 'err misc'  

So I've got wireless sort of working on this laptop - but only for the extremely patient.

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## spottedcoin

I have the laptop and got the ndiswrapper to work perfect with the drivers from hp.

PS I could never get the bcm43xx drivers working

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## Kuhndog86

The reason the BCM43xx drivers do not work is because that driver does not support the mini-pci express based cards yet.  I did manage to get it working sorta...it would only work at 11mb and only connect to broadcom-based 802.11g access points (WRT based ones as far as I can tell).  Do you have a link for the 64-bit windows driver from HP?  I can't seem to locate it.

Ben

EDIT:  never mind, I found it in the archive with the 32-bit driver.  [rant] damn, last time i checked there was no driver for this thing...and to think that all this time i have had no luck with much of anything...god i hate broadcom [/rant]

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## Kuhndog86

Oh, just an FYI, I had two differant support ppl from HP tell me that there is no BIOS lock on the express-based wireless cards...it's just that when I try replacing mine it does not get a PCI-ID...wierd isn't it.

Ben

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## spottedcoin

It is actually the 32-bit drivers that work. I think (I am no expert on drivers) the 32bit drivers also include 64-bit support, because if you look at them they talk a lot about 64-bit stuff. Here is the link:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33008.exe

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## Kuhndog86

Yeah, I spotted that.  When I bought my lappy a couple of months ago it seemed that HP/Compaq had no clue that there was such a thing as 64-bit (windows or otherwise)

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## Kuhndog86

Thanks for the thread guys...My wireless now works properly!

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## spottedcoin

No problem

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## Wapiti

I also have a new Compaq V3000 with a Broadcom wireless chipset and previously had installed the same drivers from HP/Compaq that spottedcoin had linked to (via ndiswrapper).  I'm trying to get this thing to connect to my home AP which uses WPA, but so far, no luck.  It works fine in WinXP.

dmesg shows:

```
ndiswrapper: using irq 233

wlan0: vendor: ''

wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:14:a5:bd:7b:ef using driver bcmwl5, 14E4:4311:103C:1363.5.conf

wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
```

So far, so good.  I can issue "iwlist wlan0 scan" and my AP (and a neighbor's) shows up fine.  I've set up wpa_supplicant with the following:

```
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={

 ssid="HomeNet"

 psk="my pass phrase"

 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

 proto=WPA

}
```

which works fine on my old laptop and a Netgear USB wifi adapter (also uses ndiswrapper).

However, when I issue "wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d" the console just scrolls a bunch of information related to failed connection attempts.  Here's a snippet:

```
Initializing interface 'wlan0' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'default' ctrl_interface 'N/A'

Configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' -> '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'

Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'

ctrl_interface='/var/run/wpa_supplicant'

Priority group 0

   id=0 ssid='HomeNet'

Initializing interface (2) 'wlan0'

EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state DISCONNECTED

EAPOL: KEY_RX entering state NO_KEY_RECEIVE

EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state INITIALIZE

EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED

EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0

EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0

SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=20 WE(source)=18 enc_capa=0xf

  capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf

Own MAC address: 00:14:a5:bd:7b:ef

wpa_driver_hostap_set_wpa: enabled=1

Driver does not support WPA.

wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0

Failed to set encryption.

wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0

Failed to set encryption.

wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0

Failed to set encryption.

wpa_driver_hostap_set_key: alg=none key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0

Failed to set encryption.

wpa_driver_hostap_set_countermeasures: enabled=0

wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=1

Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec

Using existing control interface directory.

Added interface wlan0

Wireless event: cmd=0x8b06 len=12

State: DISCONNECTED -> SCANNING

Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)

Scan timeout - try to get results

Received 320 bytes of scan results (1 BSSes)

Scan results: 1

Selecting BSS from priority group 0

0: 00:15:05:17:a8:07 ssid='HomeNet' wpa_ie_len=24 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11

   selected based on WPA IE

Trying to associate with 00:15:05:17:a8:07 (SSID='HomeNet' freq=2452 MHz)

Cancelling scan request

WPA: clearing own WPA/RSN IE

Automatic auth_alg selection: 0x1

WPA: using IEEE 802.11i/D3.0

WPA: Selected cipher suites: group 8 pairwise 8 key_mgmt 2

WPA: set AP WPA IE - hexdump(len=24): dd 16 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02

WPA: clearing AP RSN IE

WPA: using GTK TKIP

WPA: using PTK TKIP

WPA: using KEY_MGMT WPA-PSK

WPA: Set own WPA IE default - hexdump(len=24): dd 16 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02

No keys have been configured - skip key clearing

wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=1

State: SCANNING -> ASSOCIATING

wpa_driver_hostap_associate

hostap: Failed to configure ieee_802_1x param

Association request to the driver failed

Setting authentication timeout: 5 sec 0 usec

EAPOL: External notification - EAP success=0

EAPOL: External notification - EAP fail=0

EAPOL: External notification - portControl=Auto

Wireless event: cmd=0x8b06 len=12

Wireless event: cmd=0x8b04 len=16

Wireless event: cmd=0x8b1a len=23

Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.

Added BSSID 00:00:00:00:00:00 into blacklist

State: ASSOCIATING -> DISCONNECTED

No keys have been configured - skip key clearing

EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0

EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0

Setting scan request: 0 sec 0 usec

State: DISCONNECTED -> SCANNING

Starting AP scan (broadcast SSID)

Scan timeout - try to get results

Received 320 bytes of scan results (1 BSSes)

Scan results: 1

Selecting BSS from priority group 0

0: 00:15:05:17:a8:07 ssid='HomeNet' wpa_ie_len=24 rsn_ie_len=0 caps=0x11

   selected based on WPA IE

Trying to associate with 00:15:05:17:a8:07 (SSID='HomeNet' freq=2452 MHz)

Cancelling scan request

WPA: clearing own WPA/RSN IE

Automatic auth_alg selection: 0x1

WPA: using IEEE 802.11i/D3.0

WPA: Selected cipher suites: group 8 pairwise 8 key_mgmt 2

WPA: set AP WPA IE - hexdump(len=24): dd 16 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02

WPA: clearing AP RSN IE

WPA: using GTK TKIP

WPA: using PTK TKIP

WPA: using KEY_MGMT WPA-PSK

WPA: Set own WPA IE default - hexdump(len=24): dd 16 00 50 f2 01 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02 01 00 00 50 f2 02

No keys have been configured - skip key clearing

wpa_driver_hostap_set_drop_unencrypted: enabled=

```

One thing that's puzzling is that the info from dmesg says the driver supports various encryption types, including WPA, however wpa_supplicant (or whatever generated the last code snippet) reports that "Driver does not support WPA".  Has anyone else had success with WPA and this driver?  Is this a configuration issue?

Computer info:

AMD Turion 64 X2

kernel 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 (64-bit system)

wpa_supplicant 0.4.9

ndiswrapper 1.17

baselayout 1.12.4-r7

wireless-tools 28

Thanks for your help!

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## addeman

I've experienced troubles with ndiswrapper > 1.15 so you might want to try that.

In my wpa_supplicant.conf i have

```
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

ctrl_interface_group=wheel

eapol_version=1

ap_scan=1           # this can need changing to 1 or 2

fast_reauth=1

network={

        ssid="belkin54g"

        scan_ssid=0

        mode=0

        psk="#####################"

        proto=WPA

        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

        auth_alg=OPEN

        pairwise=TKIP

        group=TKIP

}

```

You might also want to try to run wpa_supplicant with 

```
wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 
```

 Obviously replace wlan0 with your interface.

Might also want to upgrade wpa_supplicant to 0.5.4.

Best regards

addeman

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## Wapiti

Ah, that did the trick.  I updated my wpa_supplicant.conf to resemble yours and added "-Dwext" to the wpa_supplicant line and it now works (software versions are still the same).  The connection seems to be a tad bit slower compared to my Netgear WG111 USB adapter so I'll play around with the settings a little.  Thanks addeman!

Regards,

Wapiti

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