Fried my wireless card?

[ew]

I recently inherited an old laptop and decided to load Kubuntu on it. It seemed to be working fairly well, so I tried to get wireless networking going. Since it didn't have built-in capacity, I added a PC card from Linksys (WPC300N V1). I added ndiswrapper to get the driver. At first it seemed like I was close, because I saw the wireless icon on the taskbar, and when I clicked on it, it showed the SSID of my network. But I couldn't get it to connect.

I'm not sure what happened next, but the icon doesn't show up on the taskbar anymore, with or without the card being inserted. Not only that, but the lights on the card no longer light up. When I go to the network settings, it doesn't show the wireless adapter anymore. Do you think the card is fried?

But what's worse is that somehow I've bolluxed up the package manager. Whenever I try to go into one of the add/remove options, it claims that there's a problem. I hit the "try to fix" button, but then it comes back with the crash manager (signal 6 Sigabrt). I'm worried I'll have to reinstall Kubuntu. Any ideas? Thanks!

ew

[monte48lowes]

Re: Fried my wireless card?

First things first. Getting Adept/Synaptic/apt-get [which ever you choose] working correctly.

Alt-F2 > konsole > <Enter>

sudo dpkg --configure -a

This should clear any errors you have.

Second. Network-Manager (whether via knetworkmanager or other) does have some issues. Reboot the computer and if the icon does not show up, or you do not have wireless working...

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Mike

[ew]

Re: Fried my wireless card?

Thanks for your help. The first command did fix the installer. The second command brought the lights back on the card (so it doesn't look fried!), but I still can't get it to connect. The network configuration does show a wireless device now, but I can't find a list of ESSIDs anywhere. At one time I remember finding a place to enter my WPA password, but I can't even find that anymore.

[monte48lowes]

Re: Fried my wireless card?

Try this:

iwlist scan

and wait a few minutes and check for wireless connections again. Network Manager periodically checks for available networks. The above command will scan for available networks, then the pause will let Network Manager complete its update.

Mike

[ew]

Re: Fried my wireless card?

I tried that, and I did see the ESSID of my network on the console. But when I went back to the Network Manager, it wasn't there. Moreover, when I unplug the ethernet cable, it says that there is no active device, even though the card shows up in Network Manager (wlan0). Weird. It must be working to some degree, or it wouldn't even see the ESSID. But why won't it let me try to connect to it?

[monte48lowes]

Re: Fried my wireless card?

But why won't it let me try to connect to it?

If I knew the answer to that, I'd be a very popular person right now.

I seriously don't know why it does what it's doing. I get the same thing on my laptop occasionally. Sometimes wireless works when I start up, other times it doesn't. Here are the steps I use if it does not start up.

1. Alt-F2 > 'kdesu ksysguard' > <Enter>
2. Process Table tab > type 'net' in search bar > kill 'knetworkmanager', 'NetworkManager' and 'NetworkManagerDispatcher'
3. Close ksysguard

4. Alt-F2 > 'konsole' > <Enter>

sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
sudo /usr/sbin/NetworkManager
sudo /usr/sbin/NetworkManagerDispatcher
sudo /etc/init.d/networking start

6. Alt-F2 > 'knetworkmanager' > <Enter>

This brings down all networking and restarts it. Most of the time this works in getting wireless working for me.

Mike