Comment 76 for bug 577114

As there is no fix from Lenovo, maybe we can write a driver which can turn on WLAN in the CMOS-RAM.
To do that, we need more information about where the WLAN-flag is stored in the CMOS-RAM,
so let's gain more information about what is stored in the CMOS-RAM.

To do that, everybody's help is appreciated.
We need to collect nvram images of several laptops
and try to isolate the bytes responsible for activating/deactivating WLAN.
Thus it is beneficial if many people do these steps and attach their files with the additional information.

The CMOS-RAM is also called nvram and it's content can be read using the Linux nvram driver.
Some detailed information can be also found there:

http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/bios/

To get more information of what is stored in the nvram,
we have to collect nvram images of several laptops, with the following state:

 - WLAN works normally.
 - WLAN does not work, but workaround works.
 - WLAN does not work at all.

Each nvram image should have information which bios version is installed,
as the information stored in the nvram might vary depending on the BIOS version.

To get an nvram image, you need the nvram driver which is part of the Linux kernel
and can be loaded as module.
When the module is loaded, there is a file /proc/driver/nvram which can easily be read.

michael@ideapad:/proc/driver$ ll
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:25 pktcdvd
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:25 rtc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:25 snd-page-alloc
michael@ideapad:/proc/driver$ sudo modprobe nvram
[sudo] password for michael:
michael@ideapad:/proc/driver$ ll
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:26 nvram
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:26 pktcdvd
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:26 rtc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-06-28 21:26 snd-page-alloc

To get the BIOS version installed in that laptop:

michael@ideapad:/proc/driver$ sudo dmidecode -s bios-version
[sudo] password for michael:
2ACN21WW

As you now have the nvram driver loaded, you can create an nvram image:

michael@ideapad:/proc/driver$ cp nvram ~/nvram-2ACN21WW-2012-06-28-wlan-working-after-workaround.nvram
michael@ideapad:/proc/driver$ ll ~/nvram-2ACN21WW-2012-06-28-wlan-working-after-workaround.nvram
-r--r--r-- 1 michael michael 397 2012-06-28 21:28 /home/michael/nvram-2ACN21WW-2012-06-28-wlan-working-after-workaround.nvram

Please give the file a meaningful and unique filename, containing the Bios version and a short information if WLAN was working and attach it to the ticket.