Comment 16 for bug 268625

I am not precisely sure about the reason but I am experiencing a similar problem. I am using Intrepid on a Dell Inspiron 1721 with Broadcom 4328 wireless card. I have been using ndiswrapper for a long time without any problems and it suddenly stopped working yesterday. It seems that ndiswrapper is installed properly, the module is loaded but it is not used for the wireless card in any way. I do not see the wireless adapter with ifconfig, despite the fact b43 is blacklisted (it still loads?). Below are some output you might find useful.

nasko@serre:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:23:84:3c:d1
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:23ff:fe84:3cd1/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:492 (492.0 B)
          Interrupt:21

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:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:100 (100.0 B) TX bytes:100 (100.0 B)

nasko@serre:~$ lsmod|grep -i -e b43 -e b44 -e ssb -e ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper 253696 0
b44 41872 0
mii 14592 1 b44
usbcore 175376 5 uvcvideo,ndiswrapper,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
ssb 46340 1 b44
nasko@serre:~$ sudo emacs /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist &
[1] 6320
nasko@serre:~$ cd /etc/modprobe.d/
nasko@serre:/etc/modprobe.d$ ls
aliases blacklist blacklist-oss dkms isapnp ndiswrapper
alsa-base blacklist~ blacklist-scanner fuse libpisock9 nvidia-kernel-nkc
arch blacklist-framebuffer blacklist-watchdog i2c libsane options
arch-aliases blacklist-modem bluez ipw3945 lrm-video toshiba_acpi.modprobe
nasko@serre:/etc/modprobe.d$ cd
nasko@serre:/etc/modprobe.d$ cd ~
nasko@serre:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:23:84:3c:d1
          inet addr:192.168.0.2 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:23ff:fe84:3cd1/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:4140 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4044 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:3809582 (3.8 MB) TX bytes:829853 (829.8 KB)
          Interrupt:21

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:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:100 (100.0 B) TX bytes:100 (100.0 B)

nasko@serre:~$ sudo lshw -c network
  *-network
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0b:00.0
       version: 03
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0 module=ssb
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 02
       serial: 00:1c:23:84:3c:d1
       size: 100MB/s
       capacity: 100MB/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 duplex=full ip=192.168.0.2 latency=64 link=yes module=ssb multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100MB/s
nasko@serre:~$ lsmod|grep -i -e b43 -e b44 -e ssb -e ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper 253696 0
b44 41872 0
mii 14592 1 b44
usbcore 175376 5 uvcvideo,ndiswrapper,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
ssb 46340 1 b44
nasko@serre:~$ tail /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

# replaced by asus-laptop (Ubuntu: #184721)
blacklist asus_acpi

# low-quality, just noise when being used for sound playback, causes
# hangs at desktop session start (Ubuntu: #246969)
blacklist snd_pcsp

blacklist b43
blacklist b44

I do not understand how it is possible to blacklist b44 and still have it present. When I run "modprobe -r b44" my network stops working altogether.

Do you have any ideas how to fix this?