Ubuntu – Lenovo Thinkpad Wireless Hard Blocked

lenovorfkillthinkpadwireless

Until now my wlan has been working perfectly on a two week old 14.04 install on a brand new E540. It suddenly died on me, couldn't be turned on in settings > networks or via Fn + F8.

rfkill output: 

~$ rfkill list all

0: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: tpacpi_bluetooth_sw: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
2: tpacpi_wwan_sw: Wireless WAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Fn + F8 only toggles the soft block, same for rfkill unblock all

I'm in need of any method of toggling the hard block on the phy0 Wireless Lan.

Best Answer

I stumbled on the solution from a friend who had a similar issue on an old Dell inspiron. The E540, and probably similar Thinkpad models, automatically turns off the wireless card when an ethernet cable/ usb modem is connected before boot. This functionality is fine for Windows where Fn + F8 actually toggles the hard block, but on linux it requires a restart with any LAN connections removed.

So the solution for now is to only connect my 3G modem after boot.

Update:

If anyone knows how to toggle hard blocked network connections in linux, please to add an answer, this is really just an interim solution that doesn't fix the underlying issue.

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