Thinkpad WiFi LED does not light up

[Matthias Mailänder]

The IBM 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter works fine under Ubuntu 6.06

Just one small thing: the WiFi LED, which indicates the activated WLAN adapter and flickers when there is network traffic, does not light up.

http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/IBM_11b/g_Wireless_LAN_Mini_PCI_Adapter

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Thanks for the bug report, Matthias. Are you still having this problem in edgy?

[Matthias Mailänder (mailaender)]

Yes, the problem still exists in Edgy Eft. It is an Atheros chipset WLAN miniPCI card, so I think it has something to do with madwifi kernel module. It is just a small anoyance, nothing to serious.

[Matthias Mailänder (mailaender)]

http://madwifi.org/ticket/1018
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/EnableLEDs

[Philip Paquette (pcpaquette)]

Confirming. Does the http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/EnableLEDs instructions work?

[Matthias Mailänder (mailaender)]

I played around with the http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/EnableLEDs settings and Kubuntu 7.04 beta liveCD and it works - the LED starts to flicker when there is traffic. It's a little annoying :) There is already a patch for this: http://madwifi.org/ticket/1018 - "allow LED always on (no blinking)" - so that it can be set up to behave more like the windows driver.

[Guillaume Duveau (guix)]

I'm confirming that the instructions here work : http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/EnableLEDs

Instructions for a Thinkpad Z60t 2511-EJG on my LaptopTesting page : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/ThinkpadZ60t-2511-EJG

With my settings the LED lights every 3 seconds if associated to an AP, and flickers with wireless trafic which is a good behaviour IMHA. However I'd like to point that the settings are different for different wireless cards (for me ar5212) so a specific configuration should be installed after the detection of the wireless card.

[Sujee Maniyam (sujee)]

OS : Kubuuntu : Gutsy : Tribe 2

I have an Lenovo Thinkpad T61 with Atheros card, and I have the same issue. The instructions at MadWiki do work. But (K)Ubuntu being a friendly OS, this should be detected during install time and setup properly :-)

[TonyS (tony-unreal)]

Confirmed on my Thinkpad T61 running Gutsy Tribe 4 with all updates (as at 22 August 07)... the wireless light never does anything. Works as expected under Vista.

[stSabri (hsstsabri)]

Confirmed in my T61 run gutsy released the wife LED does not light up at all

[Pooh (kuba-pajerski)]

Confirmed on my T61 running Gutsy, LED does not work.

[jhoffmann (hell-dr)]

Confirmed on my Thinkpad T60 running Hardy (Alpha4 and 5), WiFi Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG works but LED is not enabled.

Not confired on myThinkpad T60 with Feisty and Gutsy : with older kernels the LED worked.

[Andreas H. (andrey-harder)]

Confirmed on my Thinkpad R61 (type 8919), running Gutsy.

[Tom Vetterlein (smbm)]

Confirmed on my R61 3945 too. Wireless works but no LED.

My uname -r output:

2.6.24-11-generic

[redacted (redacted)]

Confirmed on my R61e running Hardy Beta 1, Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG works, but no LED.

Not confirmed on same R61e running Gutsy: light worked with older kernels.

[kakukri (kakukri)]

Same here on an R61-8935 with Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG: on Hardy beta (64 bit) wifi works, but the LED not, on Gutsy (64 bit) both wifi and LED does work as expected.

I think the problem might be in the iwlwifi driver. I say this because today I repleced the ipw3945 driver with iwl3945 on a Debian Lenny, and since that the LED finished working. I tried to test it in Ubuntu, but in Hardy there is no ipw3945 driver anymore, and the iwl3945 on Gutsy does not work (I can load it, but seems no wireless interface is created).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.