WiFi Not Detecting/Connecting

[LordNorm1]

I was having issues previously with my wireless card, and after I resolved them I realized that although I was able to connect to a WiFi network, the system wouldn't detect my home network, and when I tried to add it under the "Connect to a Hidden Network" option, it would endlessly attempt to connect while occasionally prompting me for my WiFi password every few minutes. Does anyone know anything?

[AlanWalker]

Did your system connect wirelessly with your home network before you made changes?

[LordNorm1]

Did your system connect wirelessly with your home network before you made changes?

No-I made the changes so Mint would detect my wireless driver.

[AlanWalker]

Did your system connect wirelessly with your home network before you made changes?

No-I made the changes so Mint would detect my wireless driver.

What edition of Mint are you using?

What issues did you have?

What WiFi network were you finally able to connect to?

What changes did you make?

How do you know your home wireless router is working?

Are you able to use a browser to connect to your home wireless router?

I'm fairly sure that unless someone set your wireless router to broadcast, telling it to not broadcast its SSID, that you should not be searching for a hidden wireless router.

[LordNorm1]

Did your system connect wirelessly with your home network before you made changes?

No-I made the changes so Mint would detect my wireless driver.

What edition of Mint are you using?

What issues did you have?

What WiFi network were you finally able to connect to?

What changes did you make?

How do you know your home wireless router is working?

Are you able to use a browser to connect to your home wireless router?

I'm fairly sure that unless someone set your wireless router to broadcast, telling it to not broadcast its SSID, that you should not be searching for a hidden wireless router.

I'm using Qiana; The issue was that there were no detected WiFi networks; I was never able to connect. I have other devices that I used to check my home wireless router. It is set to broadcast its SSID.

[AlanWalker]

What edition of Mint are you using?

What issues did you have?

What WiFi network were you finally able to connect to?

What changes did you make?

How do you know your home wireless router is working?

Are you able to use a browser to connect to your home wireless router?

I'm fairly sure that unless someone set your wireless router to broadcast, telling it to not broadcast its SSID, that you should not be searching for a hidden wireless router.

I'm using Qiana; The issue was that there were no detected WiFi networks; I was never able to connect. I have other devices that I used to check my home wireless router. It is set to broadcast its SSID.

To confirm that I understand your situation: you are able to connect to at least one wireless network, and you cannot see your home network's SSID when you are attempting to connect to it.

Is this so?

When you are attempting to connect to your home network do you see any SSID's?

[JeremyB]

No-I made the changes so Mint would detect my wireless driver.

What edition of Mint are you using?

What issues did you have?

What WiFi network were you finally able to connect to?

What changes did you make?

How do you know your home wireless router is working?

Are you able to use a browser to connect to your home wireless router?

I'm fairly sure that unless someone set your wireless router to broadcast, telling it to not broadcast its SSID, that you should not be searching for a hidden wireless router.

I'm using Qiana; The issue was that there were no detected WiFi networks; I was never able to connect. I have other devices that I used to check my home wireless router. It is set to broadcast its SSID.

What wireless card and what channel is your router on?

Code: Select all

lsmod

[LordNorm1]

To confirm that I understand your situation: you are able to connect to at least one wireless network, and you cannot see your home network's SSID when you are attempting to connect to it.

Is this so?

When you are attempting to connect to your home network do you see any SSID's?

No, I cannot connect to any wireless networks or see any SSIDs at all, when attempting to connect or not.

[AlanWalker]

To confirm that I understand your situation: you are able to connect to at least one wireless network, and you cannot see your home network's SSID when you are attempting to connect to it.

Is this so?

When you are attempting to connect to your home network do you see any SSID's?

No, I cannot connect to any wireless networks or see any SSIDs at all, when attempting to connect or not.

What kind of system is your wireless card in?

What version/edition of Linux are you using?

[LordNorm1]

To confirm that I understand your situation: you are able to connect to at least one wireless network, and you cannot see your home network's SSID when you are attempting to connect to it.

Is this so?

When you are attempting to connect to your home network do you see any SSID's?

No, I cannot connect to any wireless networks or see any SSIDs at all, when attempting to connect or not.

What kind of system is your wireless card in?

What version/edition of Linux are you using?

The system's a Compaq V5000, model V5101US. The Linux version's Mint 17 Qiana, and I haven'd changed the kernel, so it's whatever the default is.

[AlanWalker]

To reiterate:

To confirm that I understand your situation: you are able to connect to at least one wireless network, and you cannot see your home network's SSID when you are attempting to connect to it.

Is this so?

When you are attempting to connect to your home network do you see any SSID's?

No, I cannot connect to any wireless networks or see any SSIDs at all, when attempting to connect or not.

You were asked:

What kind of system is your wireless card in?

What version/edition of Linux are you using?

you responded:

The system's a Compaq V5000, model V5101US. The Linux version's Mint 17 Qiana, and I haven'd changed the kernel, so it's whatever the default is.

Qiana does not have a "default" kernel.

Ok, you're using Qiana on a Compaq V5101US Notebook (its a notebook as per HP).

Your system is a notebook; as such it does not have a "wireless card"; lets agree to say "you cannot connect wirelessly", or "I'm having trouble connecting wirelessly", or variations thereof; its simpler and removes a misuse of nomenclature that can foster confusion.

So, to continue, when you started this discussion you said

I was having issues previously with my wireless card, and after I resolved them...

What issues (plural?) were you having with your system's wireless connection feature, what did you resolve when you said you "resolved them" (again, plural), and what did you do to do that?

HP says it has Vista and XP drivers for the V5101US; presumably your system, when new, had either XP or Vista on it.

Do you know if the hardware feature on your notebook ever worked, say under Windows or another OS?

[LordNorm1]

To reiterate:

To confirm that I understand your situation: you are able to connect to at least one wireless network, and you cannot see your home network's SSID when you are attempting to connect to it.

Is this so?

When you are attempting to connect to your home network do you see any SSID's?

No, I cannot connect to any wireless networks or see any SSIDs at all, when attempting to connect or not.

You were asked:

What kind of system is your wireless card in?

What version/edition of Linux are you using?

you responded:

The system's a Compaq V5000, model V5101US. The Linux version's Mint 17 Qiana, and I haven'd changed the kernel, so it's whatever the default is.

Qiana does not have a "default" kernel.

Ok, you're using Qiana on a Compaq V5101US Notebook (its a notebook as per HP).

Your system is a notebook; as such it does not have a "wireless card"; lets agree to say "you cannot connect wirelessly", or "I'm having trouble connecting wirelessly", or variations thereof; its simpler and removes a misuse of nomenclature that can foster confusion.

So, to continue, when you started this discussion you said

I was having issues previously with my wireless card, and after I resolved them...

What issues (plural?) were you having with your system's wireless connection feature, what did you resolve when you said you "resolved them" (again, plural), and what did you do to do that?

HP says it has Vista and XP drivers for the V5101US; presumably your system, when new, had either XP or Vista on it.

Do you know if the hardware feature on your notebook ever worked, say under Windows or another OS?

When I said the "default kernel", I meant the version of the Linux kernel Qiana was built around. Also, while I have plenty of experience with the parts of a desktop computer, laptops/notebooks/whatever are complete mysteries to me. The card driver wasn't with the alternative drivers and other stuff that's on the OS, so I had to jump through a few hoops, install NdisWrapper, and get the card's driver working like it did when it had XP on it. As a result, I can now toggle the "wireless" or the "wired" option, rather than just having the latter. The problem is, when I pull up the wireless network settings, no WiFi networks are detected, and if a WiFi network that I know exists, like my home network, has a password and I try to connect to it via the "Connect to a hidden network" button, Mint just continually attempts to connect, with a prompt asking for a password coming up every two minutes or so. If I put in the password, it just asks me for it again a few minutes later, and the cycle repeats.

[AlanWalker]

The problem is, when I pull up the wireless network settings, no WiFi networks are detected, and if a WiFi network that I know exists, like my home network, has a password and I try to connect to it via the "Connect to a hidden network" button, Mint just continually attempts to connect, with a prompt asking for a password coming up every two minutes or so. If I put in the password, it just asks me for it again a few minutes later, and the cycle repeats.

Your system has a mechanical switch on the front edge of your notebook (as per the HP documentation ref. above).

Is that switch in the 'enable wireless connectivity' position?

[JeremyB]

Code: Select all

wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && chmod +x wireless_script && ./wireless_script

Enter this in terminal and post the resulting wireless-info.txt or attach the .tar.gz file

[AlanWalker]

The problem is, when I pull up the wireless network settings, no WiFi networks are detected, and if a WiFi network that I know exists, like my home network, has a password and I try to connect to it via the "Connect to a hidden network" button, Mint just continually attempts to connect, with a prompt asking for a password coming up every two minutes or so. If I put in the password, it just asks me for it again a few minutes later, and the cycle repeats.

Code: Select all

wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && chmod +x wireless_script && ./wireless_script

Enter this in terminal and post the resulting wireless-info.txt or attach the .tar.gz file

Also, if you don't have inxi installed, install it (you'll find it useful).

With inxi installed enter inxi -n (this will display details of your networking chipsets and the drivers they are using) then post the results here, ok?

[LordNorm1]

The problem is, when I pull up the wireless network settings, no WiFi networks are detected, and if a WiFi network that I know exists, like my home network, has a password and I try to connect to it via the "Connect to a hidden network" button, Mint just continually attempts to connect, with a prompt asking for a password coming up every two minutes or so. If I put in the password, it just asks me for it again a few minutes later, and the cycle repeats.

Code: Select all

wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && chmod +x wireless_script && ./wireless_script

Enter this in terminal and post the resulting wireless-info.txt or attach the .tar.gz file

Also, if you don't have inxi installed, install it (you'll find it useful).

With inxi installed enter inxi -n (this will display details of your networking chipsets and the drivers they are using) then post the results here, ok?

When I run inxi -n, this is what I get:

Code: Select all

Network:   Card-1: Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller driver: ndiswrapper 
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: 00:14:a5:74:94:95
           Card-2: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter driver: 8139too 
           IF: eth0 state: unknown speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:0f:b0:f8:c0:0d

When I run the other thing, I got this thing that I attached.

[AlanWalker]

The problem is, when I pull up the wireless network settings, no WiFi networks are detected, and if a WiFi network that I know exists, like my home network, has a password and I try to connect to it via the "Connect to a hidden network" button, Mint just continually attempts to connect, with a prompt asking for a password coming up every two minutes or so. If I put in the password, it just asks me for it again a few minutes later, and the cycle repeats.

..., if you don't have inxi installed, install it (you'll find it useful).

With inxi installed enter inxi -n (this will display details of your networking chipsets and the drivers they are using) then post the results here, ok?

When I run inxi -n, this is what I get:

Code: Select all

Card-1: Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller driver: ndiswrapper IF: wlan0 state: down mac: 00:14:a5:74:94:95

Card-2: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter driver: 8139too IF: eth0 state: unknown speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:0f:b0:f8:c0:0d

Ok, your netbook has a Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] chipset; it looks like ndiswrapper is addressing that chipset, but wlan0 is down.

A Google search on "bring wlan0 up" yields advise to use sudo ifconfig wlan0 up from this post.

I don't know if ifconfig is installed on your system but you can try the command; if you do have ifconfig installed, and if the suggested command works, your issue is at least partially resolved but, unless the command to bring wlan0 up yields a persistent "up" state, further refinement will be necessary to make a wireless connect automatic.

Try the command; let's see what happens.

If necessary we can try installing Debian's Broadcom 43xx wireless devices drivers; that may make it advisable to uninstall the ndiswrapper driver.

At this point I think it would be advisable to seek comment from forum users more knowledgeable in this area than I am, but we can continue as I am also in learning-mode.

[pdc_2]

for the 4318: this is the definitive Broadcom ubuntu/mint guide http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2214110

and Chili555 would say that you only need the linux-firmware-nonfree and one installs with sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

however ndiswrapper seems to be there so I would suspect it needs to be removed first;

[LordNorm1]

for the 4318: this is the definitive Broadcom ubuntu/mint guide http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2214110

and Chili555 would say that you only need the linux-firmware-nonfree and one installs with sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

however ndiswrapper seems to be there so I would suspect it needs to be removed first;

That didn't work, and neither did the thing AlanWalker recommended. However, this returned an error message that I think had to do with the amount of space I had left on my hard drive, so I'll try and fix that and edit in the results.