# [Ndiswrapper] not finding access point

## epohs

I'm sorry about the very noob question.  I've searched around on the forums, and on google, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for, so it's hard to find the solutions.

If my problem is a well documented one, a link to the explaination would be great.

Ok, so I've emerged ndiswrapper, installed the drivers given for this card on the list  using ndiswrapper -i, and ran update-modules.  But, my wireless card doesn't seem to be finding my access point.

My setup:

Kernel: linux-2.6.9-gentoo-r9

Ndiswrapper version: 0.12-r1

Wireless Card: LinkSys WMP54GS w/SpeedBooster

Wireless Router: LinkSys WRT54GS

My router is broadcasting the network's name.  I can see it via my wired ethernet connection on this machine, and on my XP machine wirelessly.

The results of various related commands:

lspci

```
0000:00:09.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)
```

ndiswrapper -l

```
Installed ndis drivers:

bcmwl5  driver present, hardware present
```

dmesg

```
ndiswrapper version 0.10 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)

ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:09.0[A] -> GSI 12 (level, low) -> IRQ 12

ndiswrapper: using irq 12

wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0f:66:70:41:0b using driver bcmwl5.sys

ndiswrapper device wlan0 supports WPA with AES/CCMP and TKIP ciphers

ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5.sys (Linksys,02/19/2004, 3.50.21.11) added

```

iwconfig

```
wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:off/any

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00

          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:25 dBm

          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-10 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:55767   Missed beacon:0
```

ifconfig

```
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0F:66:70:41:0B

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

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

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

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

          Interrupt:12 Memory:db000000-db001fff
```

iwlist wlan0 scan

```
wlan0     No scan results
```

I'm not sure what other information might be pertinent to my problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

----------

## epohs

I'm thinking maybe I have a misconfigured /etc/init.d/net.eth0 or, need a net.wireless (which I don't believe I have), or something??  But, it's a relatively fresh install of gentoo 2004.3.

I haven't tinkered with much.

P.S. *bump*  :Smile: 

----------

## RBH

I remember having a go at getting a WLAN card (another Broadcom one, fairly sure it used bcmwl5 too) to work and it was absolute hell. Then again, Windows wouldn't detect it either, so it was probably a dodgy card.

Due to how dodgy wireless networking is at the moment (I've had my network taken down by a carabina(sp?) in the past), I'd guess that there's a nice big lump of metal between you and your AP. Radiators are notorious for this. Cordless phones and microwaves can also bugger the whole thing.

Try, as an experiment, putting the AP right next to the box you're having problems with, with a clear line of sight.

----------

## epohs

The router/access point is currently about 2 feet from the machine with nothing but really cold air in between (it's in my basement).   :Smile: 

----------

## kill

Try :

```

iwconfig wlan0 essid any

```

----------

## epohs

 *kill wrote:*   

> Try :
> 
> ```
> 
> iwconfig wlan0 essid any
> ...

 

Isn't that what it defaults to, and is set to currently?  (not trying to be a smartass; it's a legitimate question.  :Smile: )

----------

## kill

 *epohs wrote:*   

> Isn't that what it defaults to, and is set to currently?

 

On my system I've always have to set it by hand like that.  It doesn't default to anything for me.  Try it and see if it does anything for you, if it does then your problem is solved.

----------

## epohs

iwconfig wlan0 essid any doesn't seem to change anything, but then again iwconfig wlan0 essid MYNETWORNAME doesn't seem to change anything either.

it seems like iwconfig isin't having any effect on my card's settings.

could this indicate that the driver i have isn't working with ndiswrapper?

// edited for speelin'

----------

## kill

I have an older version of the card your using.  I'm using the driver bcmwl5a.  You may want to try it.  Here is the exact windows driver I'm using.

----------

## epohs

should iwlist wlan0 scan detect my access point with eth0 up?

----------

## kill

I'm going to asume so but I'm not 100% sure, my card with ndiswrapper is unable to scan for access points.

----------

## tbart

Hello there...

Similar problem with my card.

It's an Acer/Inprocomm/LanExpress i2220ntx.sys card (in a friend's Aspire 1362LMi Notebook)

lspci:

```

0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Unknown device 17fe:2220

        Subsystem: AMBIT Microsystem Corp.: Unknown device 0305

        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11

        I/O ports at 1c00

        Memory at c0006000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32]

        Memory at c0005000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]

        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

```

i read it uses the exact same chipset as your broadcom card.

i used (till now) the provided windows drivers with no avail.

ndiswrapper likes the inf+sys, wlan0 is there, but scanning doesn't work (my Acer Aspire 1356LCi, with a Realtek-Ndiswrapped WLAN card sitting next to it works flawlessly, everything set up equally...)

i will give the/your broadcom drivers a go, but i don't dare to hope it's gonna be any better...

you could also try my drivers, if you like! (let's do some driver sharing...   :Razz: )

http://www.fh-stpoelten.ac.at/~tm021005/AcerIPN2220

Hope there's gonna be some good news, soon....

btw:

i just noticed: look at

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/List

you'll find people running gentoo and my card, working - are you out there? please help me!! - and the following:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Card: Linksys WPC54G V4, 54mbps 
> 
> Chipset: AirConn? IPROCOMM IPN 2220 (rev 01) 
> ...

 

so - look at the pciid - our cards are definitely the same... and both of them work!

but i don't know how to get them to work...

tbart

----------

## Giambo

I've the same problem: I'm using ndiswrapper with bcmwl5a (Dell Inspiron 9100 integrated wireless card) and it worked great.

But after the last update of ndiswraper it doesn't seems to work anymore, it is impossible to set the essid and to scan the network  :Sad: 

----------

## epohs

well, at least we can take comfort in the fact that we're not alone.

 :Very Happy: 

----------

## Giambo

 *epohs wrote:*   

> well, at least we can take comfort in the fact that we're not alone.
> 
> 

 

It's disturbing that for me it worked and now no more   :Evil or Very Mad:  ...

I tried also an older version of ndiswrapper (0.10), with no success.

----------

## epohs

ok, /etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop will bring down my wired network card manually. right?

how would i go about bringing up the wireless card manually?  i seem to have no /etc/init.d/net.wireless

and, if this wireless card may not support scanning for access points, how can i tell if it's connecting?

----------

## kill

 *epohs wrote:*   

> how would i go about bringing up the wireless card manually?

 

```
ifconfig wlan0 up
```

 *epohs wrote:*   

> how can i tell if it's connecting?

 

Run iwconfig, ESSID and Access Point will have values.

Don't forget to have dhcpcd or the like running.

----------

## slashdevslashtty

Just a wild guess: maybe you should make sure your router is broadcasting the SSID.

----------

## TheNull

Hi,

for me, it took 3 days to get ndiswrapper working.

It turned out to respond to only 1 sequence of iwconfig commands, any other order did not work for me.

Here is what I used:

```
modprobe ndiswrapper

iwconfig wlan0 key MYKEY open

iwconfig wlan0 essid default

iwconfig rate 22M

ifconfig wlan0 up

dhcpcd wlan0
```

MYKEY is my wep key

'default' is my essid name

22M is my tx rate

'open' means that the router is set to 'open' broadcast mode

Hope this helps  =)

----------

## epohs

 *slashdevslashtty wrote:*   

> Just a wild guess: maybe you should make sure your router is broadcasting the SSID.

 

its a totally unencrypted network, my wired card is picking up the SSID, but the wireless card won't even respond to iwconfig wlan0 essid even when i manually enter the network name.

----------

## kill

 *epohs wrote:*   

> my wired card is picking up the SSID

 

Ok... a wired card cannot do that.  iwconfig for your wired card should say "no wireless extensions."  I'm assuming and hoping you mean that your wired card can connect to the router.  If it really is showing the SSID then you have your wired and wireless card mix up.

----------

## epohs

oops, sorry, i was thinking SSID was synonomous with the network name.

I know my router is broadcasting the network name, and "Wireless SSID Broadcast" is enabled on the router (LinkSys WRT54GS).

// is it possible to manually set the wireless configuration (channel, essid, etc..)? iwconfig doesn't seem to be affecting it.

----------

## Giambo

Well well, I solved the problem  :Smile: 

I've a Dell Inspiron 9100 with integrated  Broadcom BCM4306. My laptop has a key combination to "disable" the card (Fn+F2): The card ist still visible to the operating system, but doesn't send any bit. That's why I couldn't even scan the network and/or set the essid.

After hitting Fn+F2 again and enable the card, with the following code I was up and running my wireless connection in less than 30 seconds   :Very Happy: 

```

modprobe ndiswrapper

iwconfig wlan0 key restricted s:mykey

ifconfig wlan0 up

dhcpd wlan0

```

As ndiswrapper driver I'm using  "bcmwl5a" (Broadcom,06/25/2004, 3.40.73.0).

Maybe I'll write a short tutorial: Yesterday I spent the whole day to make the card running and my wife was not really happy  :Smile: 

I think the cat disabled the card: It likes to sleep on the hot laptop, and often it turns the machine down. Once it hitted the "click here to remove" link on a SPAM mail   :Shocked: 

----------

## kill

 *Giambo wrote:*   

> Well well, I solved the problem

 

Great, now we just need to solve epohs' problem.  His card doesn't have an on/off switch.

epohs is the little green light on the card on?

----------

## Giambo

 *kill wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Great, now we just need to solve epohs' problem.  His card doesn't have an on/off switch.
> 
> epohs is the little green light on the card on?

 

Maybe the card has to be enabled with a special software, via Windows.

Or maybe with a special BIOS setting (?) ...

----------

## kill

 *Giambo wrote:*   

> Maybe the card has to be enabled with a special software, via Windows. 
> 
> Or maybe with a special BIOS setting (?) ...

 

The user manual and install info for the card does says nothing about an on/off switch.

----------

## epohs

yeah, my card does have a green LED, and it is off currently... which is strange because it was on earlier.

I believe it turned off after I modprobed

// yup, the LED comes back on when i run modprobe -r ndiswrapper

----------

## epohs

well, hmm...

i re-ran modprobe ndiswrapper, and now the LED is lit brighter than i've ever seen it.

but i'm getting the following message in dmesg:

```
ndiswrapper version 0.12 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)

This driver (bcmwl5a) is not for your hardware. It's likely to work anyway but have it in mind if you have problem.
```

----------

## kill

The green light is a good thing.  As for your dmesg mine says the same except (preempt=yes,smp=yes).

Other than trying a different driver the only other thing I can think of doing is trying the 1.0rc1 release of ndiswrapper.

----------

## Giambo

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> but i'm getting the following message in dmesg:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

Mybe you can try with "bcmwl5" instead of "bcmwl5a":

```

ndiswrapper -i /your/path/for/bcmwl5.inf

```

----------

## milkman4

I am using a Belkin 7010 (ver 3) and my housemate is using the ver 2.  Neither cards are now working.  I have always had problems with my card, but my housemate has been running his successfully for a few months now.

I have noticed that if I leave the card for a while then iwlist wlan0 scan it will pick up the AP.  But then when I try to iwconfig wlan0 essid MYAPSSID it does not pick it up.  ARGH!!

I have tried both the bcmwl5 and bcmwl5a drivers from http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R81433.EXE (a simple unzip works).  I am working my way through each of the infs with no success!

----------

## milkman4

I've just been looking through the state of the card in /proc and noticed that the radio is set to 0.  Does anyone know how to turn the radio on?  Or even if this is the problem!!??

----------

## Giambo

 *milkman4 wrote:*   

> I've just been looking through the state of the card in /proc and noticed that the radio is set to 0.  Does anyone know how to turn the radio on?  Or even if this is the problem!!??

 

It sounds like my problem. I could set the card to "on" using a key combination on my laptop.

Maybe you can do something similar with Windows or on the BIOS.

Or maybe directly by setting "1" in the file under /proc   :Rolling Eyes: 

----------

## milkman4

Unfortunately my card is not built in so there is no button or anything in the bios.  Making changes in windows is unlikely to affect the card in linux.  I have tried to change the file in proc but it is unwritable to even root.

----------

## Giambo

 *milkman4 wrote:*   

> Making changes in windows is unlikely to affect the card in linux.

 

The card runs on Windows ?

----------

## milkman4

Last time I checked, yes it does work in windows.  Though I don't think I have it set up there at the moment.  I recently rebuilt every thing on my system due to new hardware.

----------

## epohs

I have the same card (WMP54GS) on my windows machine, and I don't think I had to turn it on via any sort of key combo.

It detects the nework just fine on the XP box.

----------

## milkman4

You may find that the software that come bundled with the windows driver(s) handles the enabling of the radio for you.  I could be way off, the driver could just not work in linux, but I dont think we can rule the option out!?

----------

## epohs

still not working.  although the LED is lit, the drivers seem to be correct, and modprobe is recognizing the card.

where does ndiswrapper get it's configuration info from?  does it pick it up from /etc/conf.d/net?  if so, do i need to change iface_eth0 to iface_wlan0?  and if so, how do i force the wireless card to retry the newly changed config?

----------

## milkman4

Once you have modprobe'd you should try to iwlist scan.  This will tell you all of the APs that your wireless card can see.  This program does not require any configuration (to my knowledge).

----------

## projkt4

hey all,

i seem to be having the same issues let me toss in what i have so far. I am trying to run a belken f5d7010 . the card is built off of a broadcom corp. bcm4306 chipset (rev 3) the driver that i am using is bcmw15. also ndiswrapper 1.0 has been relesed and i am using that now. 

i am able to see that ndiswrapper has the correct driver loaded and it tells me that the hardware is present.

now the problem is that though i am seeing a green power light, i get not transmit/recieve light. i am not able to scan or change my essid. when i check the cardmgr i am told that open_sock(socket 0) failed: device or resource busy or another cardmgr is already running. how do i fix this? i cant get the card to really respond, wont scan, wont detect , wont allow me to change essid. i do not know if i have a net.wlan0 set up and i cant figgure out how to.

----------

## bsam

yarrr.. i'm also having the same problem. same card, and same router as epohs...  i've probably been trying to get this thing to work for at least a week now, with no luck.  I've been using the bcmwl5 driver, and havne't tried the -a one.  i'm pretty much stumped..

----------

## epohs

Yeah, I've been trying to figure this out for a couple of months now.

Tried as many versions of ndiswrapper and various drivers as I could think to try, all with no luck.

I've pretty much given up on this card now.  I'm just going to sell it to one of my co-workers and get a card that has native linux support.  Anyone have any suggestions for a nice wireless card?...  Preferably one with maximum linux compatibility, as I am thouroughly exhaused from trying to get wireless access to work on that machine.

----------

## xgregx

Hey folks, 

Can I join the "Broadcom chip won't work" party?  I have a Motorla card using the broadcom chip, and I have ndiswrapper working.  I see no errors in dmesg, but while booting, I do see an unlink() error go by really quick after ndiswapper loads, but that error doesn't appear in dmesg.  We all seem to have the same problem.  I can do a iwlist wlan0 scan and it picks up my AP, so obviously the card is working, but it always sets the ESSID to Any, even after I try to force it with iwconfig wlan0 essid mywirelessnet.  Also, when it is up, I see no blinking LED, even while running an iwlist scan.  I'm using bcmwl5 driver.  The one with "a" on the end wouldn't load.  Come on people, we can beat this.  We have to, I don't want to give up and buy a wireless bridge, although it would be a quick and dirty solution --  :Laughing: 

----------

## epohs

I've tried everything I could think to try, and exhausted my linux vocabulary.

I don't even know the questions I need to ask.   :Sad: 

lspci shows my card, ndiswrapper says the driver is installed and hardware is present, dmesg gives me a bunch of details on the driver and card all of which seems to be correct, the LED on the back of my card lights up bright green,  and iwconfig sees that wlan0 is there.

but, that's the end of my success. my card cannot find the AP, and no changes that i make to iwconfig seem to have any effect whatsoever on the configuration of my card.

i feel like i am close, but i'm totally out of ideas, and frankly tired of screwing with it.

----------

## blackrabbit

Hello there,

i've had the same problem.

But ive done it.

Searching hours for an solution it was just behind my sofa... or something like that.

Here i have an Linksys WMP54G v3, 54mbps.

So i tryed the drivers on the CD. Bad failure. They don't work.

Then i've looked on http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/List

and found a download where you can geht drivers that work with this card.(ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/WMP54Gv4_20040415.exe

And i followed the instruction to use the driver in WMP54Gv4_20040415/Drivers/WMP54Gv2/bcmwl5.inf.)

It works! Yeah! i am so happy! you can't imagine....

You can load them with ndiswrapper and then change essid, channel, whatever you want.

Hope this helps someone here too. 

blackrabbit

(excuse my bad english...)

edit: it only works with manually compiled ndiswrapper. Something is odd with the portage compiled...

----------

## ejbross

My wireless card (on my Dell Inspiron 5160) had been working just fine until about a week ago when it seemed to stop for no reason at all... scanning returned no results and setting the essid had no effect.... I must have hit Fn-F2 accidentally.  How nice of Dell to provide such lovely undocumented "feature".  This info should be added to the FAQ for ndiswrapper.  Thank you for saving my sanity!

----------

