Cannot get Wi-Fi working for Dell Studio 1749 laptop - LM16

[fat-chunk]

Hi,

I am having a lot of trouble getting my wireless card working at all on this laptop.
When I hover over or click on the wireless icon in the bottom right tray, only the wired option appears.

Here is the result of running inxi:

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 $ inxi -N
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: r8169 
           Card-2: Broadcom BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY

I tried following the advice outlined in this thread but without success:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=144532

I have tried multiple modules and restarted each time to no avail. I am currently blacklisting the bcm43xx, and the b43 modules.
I have set brcmsmac to run on startup but this has not done anything to improve the situation.

Here is the list of modules currently loaded on my machine:

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~ $ sudo modprobe -r 
ablk_helper          ghash_clmulni_intel  sdhci_pci
aesni_intel          glue_helper          serio_raw
aes_x86_64           hid                  snd
ahci                 hid_generic          snd_hda_codec
bcma                 i2c_algo_bit         snd_hda_codec_hdmi
binfmt_misc          intel_ips            snd_hda_codec_idt
bluetooth            intel_powerclamp     snd_hda_intel
bnep                 joydev               snd_hwdep
brcmsmac             kvm                  snd_page_alloc
brcmutil             kvm_intel            snd_pcm
cfg80211             libahci              snd_rawmidi
cordic               lp                   snd_seq
coretemp             lpc_ich              snd_seq_device
crc32_pclmul         lrw                  snd_seq_midi
crc_itu_t            mac80211             snd_seq_midi_event
crct10dif_pclmul     mac_hid              snd_timer
cryptd               mei                  soundcore
dcdbas               mei_me               sparse_keymap
dell_laptop          microcode            ttm
dell_wmi             mii                  usbhid
dm_log               parport              uvcvideo
dm_mirror            parport_pc           video
dm_multipath         ppdev                videobuf2_core
dm_region_hash       psmouse              videobuf2_memops
drm                  r8169                videobuf2_vmalloc
drm_kms_helper       radeon               videodev
firewire_core        rfcomm               wmi
firewire_ohci        scsi_dh              
gf128mul             sdhci  

I have tried looking for other threads relating to this particular laptop and card but not found anything else.

I have run Ubuntu on this laptop before (an older version, probably 10.04) and managed to get the wirless working without too many problems so I assume there must be an equivalent driver for Mint.

I am running Mint 16 Cinnamon.

I have experience with Ubuntu, Fedora and Scientific Linux so I know my way around the terminal but I am a novice with Mint so I apologise if I have missed something.

Here are a few more details in case they are useful:

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 ~ $ sudo /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/mintWifi.py
-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 14e4:4315 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:26:b9:d2:59:99  
          inet addr:192.168.0.13  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::226:b9ff:fed2:5999/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:826 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:880 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:425187 (425.1 KB)  TX bytes:168391 (168.3 KB)

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:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:1406 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1406 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:112004 (112.0 KB)  TX bytes:112004 (112.0 KB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server:		194.168.4.100
Address:	194.168.4.100#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.102
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.101
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.100
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.97
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.110
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.105
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.103
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.104
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.98
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.96
Name:	google.com
Address: 173.194.34.99

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 ~ $ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network UNCLAIMED     
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:f0500000-f0503fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:20:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 03
       serial: 00:26:b9:d2:59:99
       size: 1Gbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw ip=192.168.0.13 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
       resources: irq:41 ioport:5000(size=256) memory:f0404000-f0404fff memory:f0400000-f0403fff memory:f0420000-f043ffff

Thanks very much for your help.

I'm willing to provide any more details should they be required!

[fat-chunk]

Update:

I have finally managed to get the wireless recognised by the machine. I am now getting even stranger behaviour however.

I downloaded the legacy b43 driver, unloaded brcmsmac and loaded the b43 module (I also took it off the blacklist). I'm pretty sure I tried this earlier but I may not have.

Well now I finally have the option of turning the wireless on, which I did.

The first strange thing is it did not detect any networks. I therefore entered my router details into the "Connect to a hidden network" field.

It then said it was successfully connected. I tried opening a webpage before it disconnected again.

I went back to the wireless menu, and now it could detect all of the wireless networks in my area.

Problem now is that it says my router is "out of range", with me sitting about a 50cm away from it, and my friend happily using the internet on her laptop another 5m away.

Any suggestions? Hope this helps.

[fat-chunk]

Bump

[JeremyB]

Post the results of

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lsmod

[all41]

router is "out of range", with me sitting about a 50cm away from it, and my friend happily using the internet on her laptop another 5m away

What if you change places? The reason I say this is because I had a strange "null" zone in my favorite chair--only when I reclined.
This was about 15 ft from the router and no problems anywhere else in the house. Fixed it by moving the router down one shelf.