I installed ubuntu 12.04 on my dell inspiron with BCM4312 802.11/b/g (LP_PHY) wlan card,installation was followed by errors about missing firmware so to fix it i installed firmware-b43-lpphy-installer,after that it detects my wlan card but it doesn't detect any wireless networks
it's using b43-pci-bridge,however it detects few wireless networks with wl driver sometimes but wifi switch does't respond then and card is working well with windows7
I even followed these instructions to install firmware provided by broadcom but no
success and now i have no idea what could be the problem and how to fix it
Ubuntu – BCM 4312 LP-PHY card doesn’t detect any wireless networks
12.04broadcomdriverswireless
Best Answer
Work in progress ..
Solves driver issue, but not in repeatable, stable manner.
Note: I have already tried all suggestions in: Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers
Typically, after initial install of Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS (latest update) you will get an error message briefly on screen suggesting the wireless card's firmware is out of date.
In other words:
dmesg | grep -e b43 -e Broadcom
returns: (or very similar)
You need to install Non-Free drivers, then restart driver:
sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree
sudo modprobe -r b43 && sudo modprobe b43
Check the status:
dmesg | grep -e b43 -e Broadcom
should return: (or very similar)
Note 1: If you instead did a full update (
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
) to 12.04.4, this may change the b43 firmware loaded to 2008 (which is not the latest).Note 2: IMHO, this step is required to support the BCM4312-LP card, regardless of what driver you end up using.
The BCM4312-LP card should now be working ..
Try shutting down, removing power and Ethernet cable, waiting a full 20 seconds, and re-starting laptop/netbook ..
Check the status:
dmesg | grep -e b43 -e Broadcom
should return: (or very similar)
OR
Remove any soft/hard kill flags
sudo rfkill unblock all
I have tried ALL the following:
Loading the Broadcom STA driver (from icon, on top bar)
This (of course) crashed before completing install. However, once it attempts to install, the driver problem is resolved.
Manually running 'Additional Drivers', to load STA driver
So far, always crashes, stalls, or fail to load ..
Manaually running 'Additional Drivers, from command line
jockey-gtk
So far, either stalls or eventually loads ..
Will keep you updated ..
Feb-27:
No useful update.
I have used these steps 5-6 times successfully, but not fully repeatable ..