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I have a HP 530 laptop with Ubuntu 12.04 installed. With Windows Vista, I could use its wireless hardware, but now it doesn't work. I have tried using the command: sudo rfkill unblock all

Does anyone know what I should do?

Edit: I have a Broadcom wireless network card.

Glorfindel
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Emudio
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5 Answers5

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I had the same problem when using a Broadcom Wireless card in 12.04. I connected the laptop to the internet via a wired connection and let Ubuntu install all the newest updates (see the update button in the launch bar).

After rebooting with all the updates installed, the wireless card suddenly worked!

Warren Hill
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BryanL
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I also have a HP 530 laptop and at first install wireless doesn't work. Just look for a wired or broadband connection and update and upgrade everything.

sudo apt-get update  
sudo apt-get upgrade

After that just open up dash and search for 'additional drivers' and install the proprietary drivers you will find there.

Mine is usually just one, for wireless: Broadcom Corporation: BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY

Wireless should then start working. I have used Ubuntu on this computer from 10.10, 11.04, 12.04 and am now using 13.04, that procedure always works out for me.

Parto
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I just wanted to add, that I had the same problem. The Broadcom wireless card on my HP 530 notebook worked fine running Windows Vista, but when I upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 it stayed dead. I installed the b43 kernel driver, which made wlan0 appear, but rfkill always showed the device to be hard blocked.

The wifi button didn't do anything, so I installed Windows 7, and the problem remained until I installed the HP Wireless Assistant utility from the HP site. This has an "enable" button after which the wifi button started working.

  • So I believe the HP 530 wifi button somehow needs software activation which is just not present in Ubuntu 12.04.
v2r
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RichieB
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I had the same problem and I did rfkill (rfkill unblock 0) it didn't do anything but I then disabled networking, re-enabled networking. And I then pressed the hardware button on the device. disabled and re-enabled networking again, It seemed to work since then this method works on every update (even 14.04 hope this helped!!

nkscoolman
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Uninstall the bcmwl-kernel-source package (if it is installed) by issuing the following command: 

sudo apt-get remove bcmwl-kernel-source

Make sure that firmware-b43-installer and b43-fwcutter packages are installed (of course, you need to connect to the internet somehow for this or download it on some other computer and install it that way): 

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer b43-fwcutter

Then, execute: 

cat /etc/modprobe.d/* | egrep 'bcm'

If you see blacklist bcm43xx in the output, this approach may work for you.

Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf by putting # in front of the line: blacklist bcm43xx.

You may open the file for editing with e.g.:

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

After reboot, your wireless should work.

Muhamed Huseinbašić
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