Ubuntu – Broadcom wireless driver not working

15.04broadcomdriversnetworkingwireless

I keep getting disconnected from the internet. When I try to reconnect, the system sometimes freezes completely.

This is a known issue for my Wireless Card (Broadcom BCM43142) that has been covered here:
Installing Broadcom Wireless Drivers

Unfortunately, the suggested solutions do not work on my computer. As I have had these issues before, I suspect that I might have changed some settings in the past that prevent my driver (bcmwl-kernel-source) from running correctly. What can I do to fix this?

I have already checked that the firmware-b43-installer package is not installed on my system. I have also checked that in Software & Updates -> Additional Drivers the box for "Using Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source from bcmwl-kernel-source (proprietary)" is ticked.

lspci -nn -d 14e4: gives

07:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01)

and sudo lshw -C network

  *-network               
   description: Wireless interface
   product: BCM43142 802.11b/g/n
   vendor: Broadcom Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
   logical name: wlan0
   version: 01
   serial: f8:2f:a8:f4:67:47
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=6.30.223.248 (r487574) ip=192.168.1.207 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abg
   resources: irq:17 memory:d1500000-d1507fff
  *-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: QCA8172 Fast Ethernet
   vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
   logical name: eth0
   version: 10
   serial: 54:be:f7:80:f1:06
   capacity: 100Mbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm pciexpress msi msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=alx latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
   resources: irq:34 memory:d1400000-d143ffff ioport:3000(size=128)

Please let me know if you need any further information.

EDIT: My config file is

options iwlwifi power_save=0 swcrypto=1

Best Answer

I've got the same wireless card, and the same problem over the last couple of weeks. I tried out several things to no avail.

As one guy wrote:

"... the driver for your chip has yet not been released into the "mainstream", so purchasing an USB adapter might be an easier option than to spend several days trying to find a solution"

I am bound to agree with his statement, and will purchase an adapter as the one below if available in Europe:

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usb

UPDATE: it does seem to have brought some stability to wifi-adapter, using the following options:

sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi-opt.conf <<< "options iwlwifi power_save=0 swcrypto=1"

You can read more about it here:

Wifi losing connection, weak signal, Intel 7260 adapter

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