Ubuntu – Lenovo Thinkpad e480 wifi not working

16.0418.04lenovonetworking

I've recently purchased a lenovo thinkpad e480 and have attempted to access the internet through the wifi manager. However, in 18.04, there is no option for WiFI networks and when I try to access the wifi settings it says there is no wifi adapter. I've also run iwconfig, with emp3s0 and lo returning as 'no wireless extensions'. The problem persists when I try to run the laptop on 16.04. When I run sudo lshw -C Network, it does return an Ethernet interface and I can view a few pcis through sudo lshw. I've tried running through the wifi troubleshooting on the ubuntu website and cannot find the pci models in their supported chipsets. Could this mean the chipset isn't supported? If so, am I forced to buy a physical wifi adapter?

Thanks in advance

edit: Results of rfkill list all

1: tpacpi_bluetooth_sw: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: No
Hard blocked: No
2: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: No
Hard blocked: No

Results of sudo lshw -C network 

*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL811/8168/8411 PRI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller

Running lspci returns several pci bridges and the ethernet controller from the previous command.

Best Answer

The Lenovo e480 comes with an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 wifi adapter as far as I know. This should be supported in kernels 4.2+ but perhaps you need to do a little research into how to get it up and running.

Here is the link to Intel's page for downloading the required firmware with some instructions:

Intel Linux Support

Related Question