Wireless card BCM4312 [14e4:4315] not working in Precise

[Alex Moldovan]

I have tried all drivers and firmwares available but couldn't make the card work although some report that it's working.

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:04b5]
 Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
 Kernel modules: wl, ssb

7: phy4: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: linux-image-3.2.0-24-generic-pae 3.2.0-24.37
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic-pae i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC269 Analog [ALC269 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC269 Analog [ALC269 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: alex 1622 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfc140000 irq 46'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC269'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0269,17aa6000,00100004'
   Controls : 20
   Simple ctrls : 11
Date: Fri May 4 11:32:07 2012
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=78500069-378d-4b96-8f44-796978bac467
InstallationMedia: This
MachineType: LENOVO 20021,2959
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic-pae root=UUID=afc2833b-69c5-4124-922e-5911730336a9 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.2.0-24-generic-pae N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.2.0-24-generic-pae N/A
 linux-firmware 1.79
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 05/13/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 19CN16WW
dmi.board.name: MoutCook
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Applicable
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr19CN16WW:bd05/13/2009:svnLENOVO:pn20021,2959:pvrLenovoIdeapadS12:rvnLENOVO:rnMoutCook:rvrNotApplicable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: 20021,2959
dmi.product.version: Lenovo Ideapad S12
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Confirming; I was helping Alex try to bring up the device.

With b43/using firmware-b43-lpphy-installer, phyX reports being hard blocked.
With the wl driver, the device is also showing as blocked; the killswitch object also reported being hard blocked.

In all cases, ideapad_wlan is completely unblocked.

We also tried blacklisting acer_wmi which was reported as a workaround on earlier releases. No workarounds or attempts to unblock the killswitch have resulted in a working and enabled device.

The hardware killswitch on the side of that system is in the "off"/unblocked position; and the soft killswitch (Fn-F5) is non-blocking (and would only affect the soft block anyway).

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Hi Alex,

Does wireless start working if you boot back into an Oneiric kernel?

Also, do you think you can test the latest mainline kernel, which can be downloaded from:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.4-rc5-precise/

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Alex Moldovan, as per http://download.lenovo.com/express/ddfm.html an update is available for your BIOS (20CN23WW). If you update to this following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BiosUpdate , does it change anything?

If not, could you please both specify what happened, and provide the output of the following terminal command:
sudo dmidecode -s bios-version && sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date

Please note your current BIOS is already in the Bug Description, so posting this on the old BIOS would not be helpful.

For more on BIOS updates and linux, please see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette .

Thank you for your understanding.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]