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After system update wireless connection is completely ruined. The 'enable wireless' option is no more visible.

This is what lshw is yielding.I followed the troubleshooting guide here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessTroubleShootingGuide, but in vain.

sudo lshw -c network
  *-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: Ethernet Connection I218-LM
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 19
       bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 04
       serial: ec:f4:bb:13:4e:94
       size: 10Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=2.3.2-k duplex=full firmware=0.6-3 ip=10.100.10.57 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=10Mbit/s
       resources: irq:60 memory:f7c00000-f7c1ffff memory:f7c3c000-f7c3cfff ioport:f080(size=32)

The hardware switch is on and getting detected.

rfkill list 

0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
4: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Rgds, Anirban

Huygens
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Anirban Dutta Choudhury
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  • Hello, could you be more specific as to which "system update" you performed? Is it a simple update of the current 14.04, or did you "upgrade" from a previous ubuntu version (say 13.10 or 12.04) to 14.04? – Huygens Jul 24 '14 at 07:40
  • @Huygens - the first one, so it was a clean installation of 14.04, followed by the updates. – Anirban Dutta Choudhury Jul 24 '14 at 08:55
  • On boot, in the grub menu, you should have an item named "Advanced options" or maybe "previous versions". Get to that menu and select one of the previous Ubuntu kernel installation. Boot with it and check if you get back WiFi. To get to see the Grub menu, check this: http://askubuntu.com/questions/16042/how-to-get-to-the-grub-menu-at-boot-time-on-a-single-boot-system-not-dual-boot – Huygens Jul 24 '14 at 09:51

1 Answers1

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I will make the assumption that you have a centrino platform (so an Intel wifi card).
Note: from Dell website, it is possible that this is not the case, depending on the exact configuration you choose for your model.

Then try to load the Intel Wireless driver (module):

sudo modprobe iwlwifi

Now perform again the command sudo lshw -c network.

Do you see the WiFi card now listed?

if yes, add the module to /etc/modules (you can do like this: sudo bash "echo iwlwifi >> /etc/modules) so that on next reboot the module will be automatically loaded.

Huygens
  • 4,713
  • If you have the Dell Wireless 1601 WiGig, try with either (or both) module: ath9k and wil6210. For the Dell Wireless 1506, that would probably be only the ath9k. So simply use the command modprobe followed by the module name. Note that it will not harm your system to load these module, if not needed these modules will only use a few 100KB of memory, that's it. – Huygens Jul 24 '14 at 07:56
  • I tried sudo modprobe iwlwifi/ath9k/wil6210 followed by sudo lshw -c network. The output remains same. – Anirban Dutta Choudhury Jul 24 '14 at 08:57
  • OK, let's have a look at your boot messages then. What is the result of the following command: egrep -i "wireless|wi-fi|wifi|wl|net|ath|wil" /var/log/dmesg. – Huygens Jul 24 '14 at 10:01
  • no wireless stuff there - nothing remotely related to wireless there. Also I checked BIOS set-up and wireless device is shown as . looks like some hardware issue, agree? – Anirban Dutta Choudhury Jul 25 '14 at 18:13
  • It depends on the BIOS/EFI, but yes if it previously showed the device and doesn't anymore, then this would be a hardware problem. Did you try reverting to an older kernel like I suggested in a comment to your question? – Huygens Jul 28 '14 at 08:47