Broadcom bcmwl5 wireless card on HP ZE2113US notebook not working
Posts: 17
Apparently it is getting recognized as a bcm43xx and some people say you need to remove that such as http://wiki.waningsun.net/index.php?title=Dell_E1405_%26_Linux_HOWTO . However, others have told us you can use the existing drivers by installing fwcutter, such as http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=185174 . We have not been able to make our bcmwl5 wireless card work on Mepis 6.0 or 6.0-4 B3 and this would be way to difficult for the average user. Can this be fixed in the next upgrade?
Re: Broadcom bcmwl5 wireless card on HP ZE2113US notebook not wo
Posts: 17
We found so far that it is best to enter ndiswrapper -l to see what drivers are included and then entering ndiswrapper -e for each driver to remove them. In our case we copied the WLAN file from the CD that came with the notebook computer to /home/WLAN. Then we entered
ndiswrapper -i /home/WLAN/bcmwl5.inf to install the driver, ndiswrapper -l to see that it and the hardware was there, then ndiswrapper -m to set it up, then IWCONFIG, etc. to check everything. We also blacklisted bcmwl43xx in /etc/modprobe.d but don't know if that made any difference. We have been told you need the exact driver for your wireless card, not an older or newer version or it won't work. There is an alternate program called fwcutter that eliminates the need for ndiswrapper but apparently is not reliable enough for prime time.
Now we are now getting the wireless networks but it only get about 28% open and then quits. In SUSE 10.2 we go through a similar process but it works so there is a solution.
RE: Broadcom
Posts: 519
KWifiManager has never worked for me, other than to display existing wireless access points.
The bwcm15 driver has come preinstalled on MEPIS for a while now, but it NEVER works out of the box for me.
My Gateway m675prr laptop has a Broadcom 4306 wireless chip but it ALWAYS gets recognized as either eth1 or eth2. Initially, ndiswrapper is not listed in the modules (lsmod) but bwcm43xx is. Doing a "ndiswrapper -l" shows the driver present but no hardware. Using rmmod to remove bcm43xx doesn't accomplish anything because running "modprobe ndiswrapper" doesn't do anything afterwards.
I keep my broadcom drivers on a memory stick. I remove bcm43xx from the list of modules, do "ndiswrapper -e bcwml5" to erase the existing broadcom driver, and then use ndiswrapper to install my broadcom driver from scratch. Then, when I do "modprobe ndiswrapper" my wireless light always comes on. THEN I can configure wlan0 with my essid and key.
I've noticed the exact same problem in the latest release of KNOPPIX 5.1.1 (1-4-2007). PCLinuxOS, on the other hand, detects the hardware properly and allows me to make a connection using the network management tool it contains.
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GreyGeek