Wifi is not detected on my laptop [SOLVED]

[ipiklu.ninja91]

I have a Lenovo Z570 i5 2nd gen laptop with NviDia graphichs card GT-520M.Its dual booted with Linux Mint 12 and Windows 7. I can view all my applications properly and listen to music and even eatch videos.

There is one problem though. Before Mint 12 I had Mint 11 there as well there was this same issue. When I plugin the ethernet cable to my laptop I can view the net normally, BUT I can never connect using wifi. Even on switching on the wifi hardware switch It shows wifi not detected in the notofication bar.
I have looked through many forums but in vain.

This is my rfkill list result:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
3: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
5: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

Thank you.
Hoping for a quick reply.

[robw]

It would be helpful to know what kind of wireless card you're running. Could you please post the output of mintwifi command in a terminal? The first line or so should give you the name of your wireless card. Thanks!

[ipiklu.ninja91]

It would be helpful to know what kind of wireless card you're running. Could you please post the output of mintwifi command in a terminal? The first line or so should give you the name of your wireless card. Thanks!

My wireless card is Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter.

Thanks!!

I hope you can guide now

[remoulder]

Please provide the information requested in how to get help

[gladsonvm]

go to http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php and download your driver
download readme and read it to get the instructions
all you have to do is to
decompress the file
compile the driver to get wl.ko file
use rmmod to remove ssb,b43 etc (you have to refer readme.txt)
then
modprobe lib80211 cfg80211
in terminal navigate to the folder with wl.ko file, then
insmod wl.ko

[robw]

I hope gladsonvm's help has worked. There are 2 other things you could try, which have worked for me on Broadcom cards in the past.

First, you may find that you can install a suitable driver automatically. Try Preferences>Additional drivers. This offered to install the Broadcom STA driver for me on the last laptop I had issues with.

Another solution which has worked is to:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

Let us know how you get on!

[ipiklu.ninja91]

go to http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php and download your driver
download readme and read it to get the instructions
all you have to do is to
decompress the file
compile the driver to get wl.ko file
use rmmod to remove ssb,b43 etc (you have to refer readme.txt)
then
modprobe lib80211 cfg80211
in terminal navigate to the folder with wl.ko file, then
insmod wl.ko

I tried it this way. I did modprobe for both lib80211 and cfg80211.
Another thing when I did rmmod for ssb it showed that it doesnt exist on directory. But rmmod for b43 gave a result that Permission denied. So I repeated with sudo command I think it worked because the error was not shown.

By the way
I have:-
Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
Ethernet Controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co. Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet Controller(rev 05)

Thank you!!

[robw]

Cool! Glad it worked. Could I just ask you to edit your post title now to say SOLVED so that others can see its a working solution? Thanks and well done.

[ipiklu.ninja91]

It didn't work the wifi is still showing its undetected......

I just said, I think the command to remove those extra drivers worked.

[robw]

Have you tried my suggestions at all?

Sorry I misunderstood your post earlier!

[ipiklu.ninja91]

robw: I am not able to try your method because i am not able to connect to my internet at all. Previously I used connect my internet on Linux via mobile through bluetooth. Now even that is not possible.

[robw]

OK, my methods will only work if you can connect via ethernet or similar. Without that capability I'm not able to help further I'm afraid. Sorry!! But good luck!

[gladsonvm]

open bluetooth preferences-->remove your device and add it again.Check DUN to connect to internet.

[ipiklu.ninja91]

The problem was nothing much. I just needed to blacklist an acer wireless switch which was blocking my networking connection and preventing the soft switch from switching on the network connection.