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Yes, yet another one. I wasn't aware until now, that that chipset gives so many woes around Linux-land.

I was just sitting here, doing my stuff, when suddenly I had no network. I checked my other devices, and they could use the wifi just fine. The wifi symbol on the network widget (I'm using Plasma) was disabled and wifi couldn't be enabled again. Maybe I had hit some wifi kill-switch on the keyboard? It's a "new" laptop (new to me), so after finding the manual and the kill-switch (Fn-F5) I tried it out while tailing journalctl:

Nov 15 19:09:06 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: Starting Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status...
Nov 15 19:09:06 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status.
Nov 15 19:09:11 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: systemd-rfkill.service: Succeeded.
Nov 15 19:09:33 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: Starting Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status...
Nov 15 19:09:33 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status.
Nov 15 19:09:38 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: systemd-rfkill.service: Succeeded.

It's kinda hard to see if it's turning it on or off, but I can see it in the network widget. See attachments.

Off On

BUT - when I click to enable wifi again, it changes to the wifi off and prints to the journal:

Nov 15 19:19:38 tanghus-Lenovo NetworkManager[705]: <info>  [1573841978.4257] audit: op="radio-control" arg="wireless-enabled" pid=1215 uid=1000 result="success"
Nov 15 19:19:38 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: Starting Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status...
Nov 15 19:19:38 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status.
Nov 15 19:19:43 tanghus-Lenovo systemd[1]: systemd-rfkill.service: Succeeded.

So the kill-switch is recognized, but the chip is still hard blocked.

After searching for quite some time I found this answer where @Jeremy31 gives the advice to disable the ideapad_laptop module. I did that, and here's the output from afterwards generated by the script linked here. The output with it enabled is here

I have also tried to reset BIOS to default, but to no avail.

tanghus
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1 Answers1

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Wow, this is a fast answer to myself The related links pointed me to an answer I didn't find while searching.

So, the G570 has two kill-switches: Fn-F5 and a stupid little hardware switch, that I had to squint my eyes hard to see. Jeez.

But happy that it wasn't worse - only 6-7 hours ;)

tanghus
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