[solved]wireless light red as in not active

[baldsue]

In the later days of 8.10 my wireless stopped working, gradually. First I could connect sporadically, then I couldn't connect at all. But Knetwork manager at least found wireless networks to tease me with. Finally before I upgraded to 9.04 wireless was out completely and the wireless light on my HP dv_7 showed red instead of green. After the upgrade to 9.04, nothing changed, still a red light instead of green on the wireless indicator.

I'm willing to work back to full wireless in gradual steps, in the reverse order of losing wireless, if necessary. So the first step is this: How can I get the wireless light green again?

On 8.10 I tried loading wicd and it wasn't wicked enough to change the light from red to green.

[olembe]

I hope this answer isn't too basic for you: apologies if it is, but have you tried various wireless troubleshooting methods? Using commands like ifconfig and iwconfig can help you pin down the problem to specific areas like hardware, router, configuration and so on.

Have a look here: https://help.ubuntu.com/8.10/internet/C/troubleshooting.html and http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-troubleshoot-wireless-network-connection-in-ubuntu.html

[baldsue]

I get this output when I type: sudo lshw -C network

Since I don't see the words "CLAIMED, UNCLAIMED, ENABLED or DISABLED" I'm assuming it's Unclaimed.

The wireless driver is iwlagn, right? Doesn't it already have the driver or do I need to find this driver from somewhere?


*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wmaster0
version: 00
serial: 00:21:6b:54:ba:3e
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn latency=0 module=iwlagn multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 02
serial: 00:23:5a:1d:c3:57
size: 100MB/s
capacity: 1GB/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.1.101 latency=0 link=yes module=r8169 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
*-network DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 1
logical name: pan0
serial: ca:c3:01:be:29:5c
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

[baldsue]

So it looks like I don't even have a wlan0...how do I get one? Anyone?

[baldsue]

ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:23:5a:1d:c3:57
inet addr:192.168.1.101 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::223:5aff:fe1d:c357/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:4590 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4604 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:4271200 (4.2 MB) TX bytes:863469 (863.4 KB)
Interrupt:247 Base address:0xc000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1240 (1.2 KB) TX bytes:1240 (1.2 KB)

pan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr be:9f:3d:c8:92:55
BROADCAST 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:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:21:6b:54:ba:3e
UP BROADCAST 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)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-21-6B-54-BA-3E-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
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)

iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

lspci
.
.
.
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
06:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): JMicron Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller
.
.
.

[baldsue]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=885847

The problem was the BIOS had disabled wireless! I found this out by stepping through the above link. Now I'm going to work on getting my system back to as close to as vanilla Kubu as I can after loading the ndsiwrapper, wicd, both which I think were unnecessary.