*STILL* can't get Broadcom Wireless working on Turion64 machine...

sancho · 10-13-2005, 10:47 AM

Hey guys, I've got a Compaq Presario V2000 laptop (Turion64) with Fedora Core 4 x86_64 running on it. I'm trying to get the internal wireless card working with ndiswrapper on it, but I'm not meeting any luck whatsoever. (BTW -- I'm trying ndiswrapper as a last resort because Linuxant's software couldn't even find the hardware). I've read countless posts both here about this issue, but where other people seem to get it resolved, I run into a dead end.

Here's what I've done so far:

0. Tried Linuxant's driverloader thingy; installed fine, but said it couldn't find my hardware after I installed the Windows drivers.
1. Compiled and installed ndiswrapper; no problems.
2. Tried using the drivers reported to work as per the Wiki (80211g.zip: WL_T60H906(8.0.10.0,XP64_logo)). Upon installing with "ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf", I get this:

Code:

Installing bcmwl5
no dev BCM43XG NTamd64

"ndiswrapper -l" also reports "invalid driver!". No need to even try loading the ndiswrapper module.
3. Tried using the drivers directly off of my included Recovery CD. Drivers install fine; "ndiswrapper -l reports":

Code:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5          driver present, hardware present

Yay. Now I "modprobe ndiswrapper" and check the syslog...

Code:

Oct 13 10:40:23 rambus kernel: ndiswrapper version 1.4 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
Oct 13 10:40:23 rambus loadndisdriver: *** glibc detected *** loadndisdriver: free(): invalid pointer: 0x00002aaaaaafa000 ***
Oct 13 10:40:23 rambus kernel: ndiswrapper (check_nt_hdr:158): Windows driver is not 64-bit; bad magic: 010B
Oct 13 10:40:23 rambus kernel: ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:505): couldn't prepare driver 'bcmwl5'
Oct 13 10:40:23 rambus kernel: ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper_load_driver:96): loadndiswrapper failed (6); check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'

Dammit. Well, maybe it's because the drivers off the CD are 32-bit?

5. Try using another driver which I got off of some message board linked from a post on here; post said they fixed his problem and he has the same laptop. This driver is sure to be 64-bit. So I installed the driver; then I did an "ndiswrapper -l":

Code:

Installed ndis drivers:
netbc564                driver present

Driver present, but where's the hardware? I didn't change anything on that end. So I "modprobe ndiswrapper" just for the heck of it, but syslog only says that "ndiswrapper loaded", but no indication that the actual driver loaded (why would it, it can't find the hardware).

6. I'm sure I tried 4th and 5th driver somewhere in there that also didn't work.

So I'm out of ideas on this one. The wireless card works fine in Windows (I just bought the thing). I've pressed the little button that supposedly turns the internal wireless on (although, incidently, the syslog only repots something about Bluetooth being enabled when I press that button; doesn't say anything about a wireless card). The card does show up in lspci:

Code:

05:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4318 (rev 02)

So at least something in Linux is seeing the hardware. But still, I'm lost on this one.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much in advance.

linux.llama · 10-13-2005, 12:29 PM

Hey
I would try looking for the bcmwl5a.inf driver. I've got a Athlon-64 and i used this driver for a little while. Till I got my Atheros. Trying hunting around on the web, the various computer makers and see if you can find the files. bcmwl5a.inf and .sys.
This might help.

sancho · 10-13-2005, 12:54 PM

Thanks for the reply; however, I've already used the bcmwl5a.inf driver (in fact, I think all of the drivers I've tried have that *.inf file attached--and I know the one that came with my computer has both "bcmwl5a.inf" and "bcmwl5.inf"). I've also tried specifically the one on the ndiswrapper Wiki list, and it craps out.

Agentvenom · 10-14-2005, 05:14 AM

Yeah, any time you get "driver present" but it doesn't say "hardware present"....wrong driver. I've read about plenty of people making cards work with 64 bit. I'm certain with the right driver it's no sweat.... can you post the exact make and model of your card and we'll see if we can help find a driver that supports 64 bit.

sancho · 10-14-2005, 02:11 PM

Well, I'm glad that I made that extra empty 5GB partition when I installed Fedora: I just installed OpenSUSE 10 (x86_64) to it. It actually comes with a (defunct?) ndiswrapper package, so I thought I'd try that out. First thing I did was install the first "WL_T60H906(8.0.10.0,XP64_logo)" drivers I tried earlier right off my Fedora partition. When I installed this driver with FC4, it came back with "no dev BCM43XG NTamd64"; when I did the exact same thing with SUSE, it says "driver present, hardware present". I've yet to actually load the ndiswrapper kernel module--for some reason they didn't think it was important to package that in. But I suspect I'll have more luck getting this to work with SUSE.

Agentvenom · 10-14-2005, 02:15 PM

If you get a "driver present, hardware present" statement, move on to the modprobe ndiswrapper step. See this site http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...p/Installation and skip down to "load a module." You probably just need to get through the "depmod -a" and "modprobe ndiswrapper" steps and you might be set.

cybrog · 10-14-2005, 02:49 PM

Quote:

3. Tried using the drivers directly off of my included Recovery CD. Drivers install fine; "ndiswrapper -l reports":

Code:

Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5          driver present, hardware present

Yay. Now I "modprobe ndiswrapper" and check the syslog...

Maybe try ndiswrapper -m next, before modprobe?

sancho · 10-14-2005, 10:05 PM

I'm writing this to you wirelessly on my laptop running OpenSUSE 10.

At this point, I've got to think that it's got something to do with Fedora. I hate to say it because I like Fedora better than SUSE, but I did exactly the same things in SUSE as I did in Fedora and Fedora just isn't cooperating. Beats me...

(Think it might have something to do with the stack size set in the stock FC4 kernel?)

Agentvenom · 10-15-2005, 03:22 AM

I'm glad to hear that you got things working!!!

Agentvenom · 10-15-2005, 06:33 AM

(ooops, disregard this post)

Agentvenom · 10-15-2005, 06:52 AM

Quote:

(Think it might have something to do with the stack size set in the stock FC4 kernel?)

You might check this out if your wireless isn't working under fedora yet. http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/l...mp11-linux.htm Check out what it says under "Configuring 802.11g with Linux Incompatible NICs" starting with number 2 or 3. I dunno if it helps you, but I thought I would pass it on.

sancho · 10-16-2005, 07:28 PM

Hmm... well I used to think that using 4K-stacks was a Fedora-only thing--and, at a time, I think it probably was. But from what I've been reading, apparently the kernel developers want 4K-stacks to be the standards and depreciated 8K-stacks some kernel versions back. I believe 4K-stacks was the default with 8K-stacks being a depreciated option back in 2.6.6 -- and we're in 2.6.13 now (in Fedora anyway). OpenSUSE 10 uses a similar version number of the kernel, so shouldn't theirs be 4K-stacks as well?

The reason I ask is that, if ndiswrapper is working on SUSE and SUSE has the same stack size as Fedora, then the stack size must not be the problem--and I don't have to go re-compiling the kernel, hopefully.

RawMule · 10-21-2005, 02:23 AM

Quote:

I'm writing this to you wirelessly on my laptop running OpenSUSE 10.

Sancho, I just got the same laptop (v2000z), and am also running suse 10. I am having many of the same problems you were having setting up wifi correctly. I tried 1.4 with the drivers listed on the ndiswrapper wiki (bcmwl5.inf) and got the invalid driver error. I'm now trying the 1.2 version, installed by YaST after a complete uninstall of ndiswrapper according to the instructions on the wiki. I can get the driver showing up fine, proven by:

Code:

#ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5  driver present, hardware present

However, when I get to the #modprobe ndiswrapper step, I get an error:

Code:

#modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.

I tried looking for the .ko file (or equivalent) that had to be removed in the 1.4 uninstall with:

Code:

 find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -name "ndiswrapper*" -print

but nothing shows up. The same thing returned ndiswrapper.ko when 1.4 was installed. Did you have any similar problems loading the module? If not, does anyone have any idea what could be wrong with mine?

Agentvenom · 10-21-2005, 02:29 AM

Are you sure you installed the kernel-source file for your kernel and created the symbolic link? Although I think that gives a little different error....it's worth a check.

Agentvenom · 10-21-2005, 02:34 AM

Ooops, wait, if you installed through YAST, that shouldn't be the problem.