Broadcom WiFi on Suse 10.1 Enterprise desktop

**sinkhole777** · 09-17-2006, 05:55 AM

Hi all,
I have installed Suse Ent Desktop 10.1 on my Compaq Presario V6002 notebook. All great so far, but I can't seem to get the wifi adaptor working. It's a Broadcom 802.11a/b/g adaptor.

It's probably because I am a newbie to Linux, and am used to Windoze.

Any advice on getting this working would be much appreciated.

Everything else has been great with this distro so far

Thanks in advance

**redhead** · 09-17-2006, 10:35 AM

There need to be a bit more info than a Broadcom WIFI chipset, Broadcom uses softMAC, which makes current fullMAC drivers useless for it, and thus at this stage we need to turn towards drivers at varius development stages. But since it's scarse with which Broadcom chipsets has been seen working with which drivers, we need to know what chipset it's based on.

I havn't seen anyone mentioning what hardware they've found on your type of notebook, so you need to investigate a bit.

In a command-prompt issue this command

> lspci -v -v

look for the part which says anything with wireless like this

Code:

0000:02:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b
        Subsystem: AIRONET Wireless Communications: Unknown device 5000
        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 (1000ns min, 1000ns max), Cache Line Size: 0x08 (32 bytes)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: I/O ports at 8000 [size=256]
        Region 1: Memory at d0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Region 2: Memory at d0400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
        Expansion ROM at f2000000 [disabled] [size=2M]
        Capabilities: <available only to root>

once we are able to see these type of info from your notebook, it will make it easier to destinguish which chipset is in use, and with that info turn you toward the correct driver.

Steven Vaughan has made a few remarks about experimental support for broadcom chipsets of the 43xx family, with the introduction of the Devicescape 8023.11 stack, but at this stage we're unaware of your current chipset.

If everything fails, you can allways turn to ndiswrapper and get the support through usage of the windows NDIS with the binary windows driwers for your card.

Off topic
In order to give you an idear of the people you're among here, I myself am involved with development of the Madwifi driver, Prism54 softMAC driver and rt2x00 driver, so considder yourself in good hands

**sinkhole777** · 09-18-2006, 03:17 AM

Thanks for your reply.
This notebook is a new one.
Turion 64 dual core 1.6ghz CPU, 2 x 512MB Ram, 100GB HDD,
Nvidia GeForce Go6150 GPU, Pheonix Bios 4.0 release 6.1

I have downloaded the ndiswrapper and info that I intend to read up on as a possible solution. I have extracted the following info from windows system manager, which may be helpful. I'm at work at the moment, so I can't reboot to Suse and run the command prompt for Linux hardware id immediately, but will as soon as I can, and post results here

Cheers

Name [00000001] Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN
Adapter Type Ethernet 802.3
Product Type Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN
Installed Yes
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_4312&SUBSYS_1361103C&REV_01\4&14C 5F9B7&0&0018
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\bcmwl5.sys

**sinkhole777** · 09-18-2006, 03:52 AM

Ok, I think this is what you need:
I am assuming that the Ethernet non-wireless adaptor is not the Broadcom chipset, as it is working perfectly in Suse, allowing me access to the internet thru my router and BB connection, so this description should be the WiFi adaptor.

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 1361
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR+ FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size 10
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 255
Region 0: Memory at b3200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3h ot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-
Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable -
Address: 00000000 Data: 0000
Capabilities: [d0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
Device: Supported: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, ExtTag+
Device: Latency L0s <4us, L1 unlimited
Device: AtnBtn- AtnInd- PwrInd-
Device: Errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
Device: RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
Device: MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 128 bytes
Link: Supported Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s, Port 0
Link: Latency L0s <4us, L1 <64us
Link: ASPM Disabled RCB 64 bytes CommClk- ExtSynch-
Link: Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel

**sinkhole777** · 09-18-2006, 04:03 AM

On reflection the lack of i/o port information in the above could mean this is not the wifi card at all! The following extracts from the Linux Hardware ID could be:
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 30b7
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle+ MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap- 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 0
Region 0: I/O ports at 1d00 [size=128]

00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 30b7
Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10
Region 4: I/O ports at 3040 [size=64]
Region 5: I/O ports at 3000 [size=64]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot +,D3cold+)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

**redhead** · 09-21-2006, 08:04 PM

Sorry for taking so long, but I've had a ton of work todo, and not nearly enough hours in the day to catch up on sleep..

The info you've given isn't quite what we're looking for, the closest thing is the first info for your BCM4310 chipset, but thats your LAN chip, since it mentions Link: Supported Speed 2.5Gb/s,... which shows it's a Gigabit LAN-chip, up untill now I havn't seen any WIFI chips that said anything above 108Mb/s...

Your second info is all other irrelevant parts, like your graphic chip.
The closest we're getting is

Name [00000001] Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN
Product Type Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN

But these dosn't show what the chip is identifying itself as...

Could you show info from just a regular lspci command, just to see if it will detect the/any WIFI chip.

**mndar** · 10-15-2006, 06:24 PM

I have a Compaq V3000 having the same specs as the V6002 mentioned by sinkhole777.
I've downloaded this driver ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp3...00/sp33009.exe
Of course I had to use ndiswrapper. With version 1.26, this is some info

mndar sp33009 # ndiswrapper -l
installed drivers:
bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware (14E4:4324) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)

lspci -n shows

01:00.0 0280: 14e4:4312 (rev 01)

modprobe ndiswrapper
tail /var/log/messages shows

Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar ndiswrapper version 1.26 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)
Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar udevd-event[12550]: udev_make_node: chmod(/dev/ndiswrapper, 020660) failed: No such file or directory
Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar ndiswrapper (link_pe_images:577): fixing KI_USER_SHARED_DATA address in the driver
Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,03/23/2006, 4.40.19.0) loaded
Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> Link [LK2E] -> GSI 19 (level, high) -> IRQ 20
Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:00.0 to 64
Oct 15 23:41:02 mndar ndiswrapper: using IRQ 20
Oct 15 23:41:03 mndar wlan0: vendor: ''
Oct 15 23:41:03 mndar wlan0: ethernet device [ mac address] using NDIS driver bcmwl5, 14E4:4312.5.conf
Oct 15 23:41:03 mndar wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
Oct 15 23:41:03 mndar usbcore: registered new driver ndiswrapper
Oct 15 23:41:03 mndar net.agent[12606]: add event not handled

I'm not sure if this card is a 4312 or a 4324.
Hope this helps. As of now bcm43xx-fwcutter does not support it, gives the

Sorry, the input file is either wrong or not supported by bcm43xx-fwcutter.
I can't find the MD5sum 4cc2a7f48698682c7ed10e6ce8953ec7

Looking forward to using the native bcm43xx driver someday

BTW, I opened up laptop and the card has BCM4311KFBG printed on it! Luckily the mac address printed on the card matches that shown by the driver!!

**zonofabee** · 05-06-2007, 02:31 PM

These messages are old, however, I do use SUSE, but not on a laptop. One suggestion that I have is if you want to take the easy way out and use an HP laptop with a Broadcom chip, and Linux, You are better off with Freespire. It is the ONLY Linux distro that I found that worked straight out of the box, and powered the wireless Broadcom chip. No hassles, no tears, and no ndiswrapper needed.

Cheers!