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While browsing the web I was notified that my Dell Vostro 1720 was offline. After no luck rebooting my D-Link Verizon WiFi router, I saw my laptop could not connect wirelessly to anything, even a USB dongle. I can only connect to a wired connection now. Where do I start in diagnosing this?

Phil Leslie
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  • Please run the script that is in the accepted answer in the link below so we may see the information needed to help diagnose the issue. http://askubuntu.com/questions/425155/my-wireless-wifi-connection-does-not-work-what-can-i-do – Wild Man Jul 20 '14 at 00:03
  • Thanks, Wild Man! I'll do this & post the results here on Sunday. – Phil Leslie Jul 20 '14 at 02:00
  • Wild Man (or anyone else who my be able to understand this), here is the link to the diagnosis of the wifi issue: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/7826786/ – Phil Leslie Jul 20 '14 at 20:28
  • Did you manually install the driver? It shows a hard block is your physical switch off? – Wild Man Jul 20 '14 at 21:35
  • If you tried the answer below you will need to remove the b43 driver before we continue. b43 partially supports your device but not completely. – Wild Man Jul 20 '14 at 21:47
  • I just copied & pasted the string below into a terminal. I don't know if it removed the b43 driver...and I don't know how to do it if it did not. I did not see a physical switch for the wifi on the laptop either...maybe I'm not looking in the right place. – Phil Leslie Jul 21 '14 at 17:33
  • @WildMan I think I may have one of my badges taken away...! This laptop was given to me a few months ago & I was completely unaware it had a switch for wifi! Lo & behold when I examined the box intently, there it was..."OFF"! Thanks you so much for the help! I wish I had posted this before I stayed up until 1:30am trying to figure it out over the weekend. – Phil Leslie Jul 21 '14 at 20:20
  • When i get home i will make this my answer so you can accept it. Glad it's working – Wild Man Jul 21 '14 at 21:44

2 Answers2

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Install the device driver package:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

If already installed, reinstall it:

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove firmware-b43-installer && sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
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According to the information from the script that you posted your wifi is hardblocked that usually means the switch is physically off and needs turned on.

Some computers have a switch, others the wifi is turned on with the fn key + f2 or some other key similar.

Wild Man
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