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I have just installed Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS on my Lenovo-G50-30 laptop, replacing Windows 8. 'Enable wifi' is greyed out. Typing rfkill list all in the terminal tells me that

0: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
and
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

So the problem is presumably that ideapad_wlan is hard blocked. 'sudo rfkill unblock all' doesn't change this. There seems to be no switch on the laptop itself, nor are any of the F keys relevant.

How do I enable WiFi?

Raffles
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  • Have you tried Fn + F7? – Mitch Feb 20 '15 at 13:15
  • "hard blocked" means what it says: -hardware- is blocking your wifi. So ... either you have a slider on the side of your notebook or you have a keyboard combination (like Fn F7 Mitch suggested) or you have a BIOS setting where wifi is disabled. As far as I know that are probably all the options. So if the 1st 2 are checked you could check your BIOS for a block ;) – Rinzwind Feb 20 '15 at 13:22
  • I found configuration by pressing esc as soon as the computer started turning on. All wireless devices were already enabled. – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 14:54

2 Answers2

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Sometimes this can be fixed by blacklisting the ideapad_laptop module with echo "blacklist ideapad_laptop" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/ideapad.conf and rebooting If it doesn't work the blacklist can be removed with sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/ideapad.conf There is a fix being worked on and addition models being added and some models are fixed in the Utopic 3.16.0-30 kernel

Dmitry Tunin has made a kernel with the fix if you want to try it, a link from the bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-lts-utopic/+bug/1397021/comments/6

Jeremy31
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  • This made no difference unfortunately. – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 14:54
  • Can you add the results of cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name as I might be able to modify the source code – Jeremy31 Feb 20 '15 at 15:34
  • cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name gives 80G0 – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 16:51
  • I should also add that the documentation (for use with windows 8) includes turning off airplane mode via f7. Pressing f7 or fn+f7 gives no response and doesn't change anything. Bluetooth is also hard blocked, if that is relevant. – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 17:05
  • Airplane mode is off I have confirmed, and Bluetooth is also hard blocked. On settings-->network, it is possible to drag the bluetooth slider into the 'on' position, but impossible to drag the wireless slider into the 'on' position (it just snaps back). – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 17:15
  • I believe your problem is related to issues with the Yoga series http://iseborn.eu/2014/07/21/activating-wifi-in-ubuntu-on-lenovo-yoga-2/ but the ideapad_laptop.c needs to be changed to include your model – Jeremy31 Feb 20 '15 at 17:53
  • Thanks I will have a go at that. For Dmitry Tunin's fix, I can download the files from dropbox - how do I use them? (I'm new to ubuntu) – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 19:43
  • Also I don't understand how to change ideapad_laptop.c – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 19:50
  • Actually, your original suggestion worked! I'm not sure why it didn't work before; maybe I didn't quite follow the instructions properly, but I now have wifi even after rebooting :) Thank you! – Raffles Feb 20 '15 at 20:19
  • If you have issues with the FN combos or backlighting, let me know and I will modify the code for you. – Jeremy31 Feb 21 '15 at 00:08
  • I did have a backlight issues actually but managed to solve it with google. My next problem is that there is no touchpad scrolling (and no opting to turn it on/off in settings). – Raffles Feb 21 '15 at 17:35
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I had this problem with my x200 and none of these solutions worked. Turns out I had forgotten to reconnect my CMOS battery and once reconnected it worked. I don't know if this was the cause or if I knocked something accidentally and it started working but if anyone is in a similar situation, it's worth a try.

Flatlinesubu
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