FC5 wireless driver bcm43xx problems (Dell Inspiron 2200)

[moosetooth]

I've been using ndiswrapper successfully with my Dell Inspiron 2200 for a while and recently attempted to load the bcm43xx without any luck. I extracted the firmware from the windows driver with bcm43xx-fwcutter with no problems. The driver appears to load fine and I can use kismet to sniff traffic using the interface. When I attempt to associate with my access point I get the following kernel messages:

kernel: SoftMAC: Scanning finished
kernel: SoftMAC: Queueing Authentication Request to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
kernel: SoftMAC: cannot associate without being authenticated, requested authentication
kernel: SoftMAC: Queueing Authentication Request to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
kernel: SoftMAC: cannot associate without being authenticated, requested authentication
kernel: SoftMAC: Sent Authentication Request to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
kernel: SoftMAC: Sent Authentication Request to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
kernel: SoftMAC: Open Authentication with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx failed, error code: 13

lspci shows my wireless adapter as:

02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Dell Unknown device 0005
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 64
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 193
        Region 0: Memory at dfdfe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

Kernel: 2.6.17-1.2145_FC5

My access point uses WEP with SSID broadcast disabled.

Like I say, ndiswrapper works great with the exact same settings though I'd much rather use a native driver. I have bcm43xx blacklisted currently because it doesn't play nice along side ndiswrapper. Can anyone shed any light on what is going on?

[jlow]

Hi there,

Could you tell me how to blacklist the bcm43xx driver? Ever since I upgraded to kernel 2.6.17-1.2145_FC5, this now gets loaded (along with SoftMAC and others) and messes up ndiswrapper, which was working fine.

Thanks for any help.

[moosetooth]

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

add line:

blacklist bcm43xx

[moosetooth]

I've continued experimenting. I thought the problem may be the fact the my AP was requiring shared key authentication so I turned that off. Then I switched to WPA and turned on SSID broadcast (which works fine with ndiswrapper). I suppose I'll keep talking to myself in this thread in case anyone else is experiencing problems getting bcm43xx to work with a Dell WLAN 1350 mini pci card. Had anyone had success with this wireless card and bcm43xx?

[moosetooth]

I set my AP to use the factory defaults then tried bcm43xx with my dell 1350 wireless card. Still no luck. I'm giving up on bcm43xx for now. Guess ndiswrapper + WPA will have to do for now. Thanks for all the help everyone :-)

[StephenH]

Originally Posted by moosetooth

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

add line:

blacklist bcm43xx

Thank you! That fixed my setup too. It was driving me crazy and drove me to trash a functioning setup and reinstall FC5 twice on my laptop. Now, it is working and I am ready to travel.

Stephen

[moosetooth]

I decided to have another go at making the bcm43xx driver work and stumbled across the solution. All I had to do was change my access point to accept 802.11B (rather than just G) and I set the rate limit to 11Mbps. Now I can access my wireless network. I guess bcm43xx can only talk B. Anyway I hope this information may be useful.

[Kelicula]

Can anyone help me to get the native wireless card to work on my Inspiron E1705 with ANYTHING?
I don't care what it is. I have downloaded ndiswrapper, but I don't know how to install it.
Also I don't know what driver to get from windows because I don't know the command to see what the model and/or "chipset" (whatever that is) is for my adapter (antenna)

Anyone up to throwing this greenhorn a bone?
Please see this post http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=200963