Dell WLAN 1397 Woes

Hardware Support
1

Total Zorin noob here. I installed the OS a few days ago, and I've been amazed at how it resurrected a 12-year-old Windows laptop that I haven't used in years. I am having 1 problem, though, and it's a common one. This is an old Dell, with a 1397 WLAN card. There's a lot on this site about this card, and I've tried the advice, and it works, but only half way. Every time I reboot the computer, it drops the wifi connection and tells me that there is no wifi adapter found. This is so even though when I check in the terminal, it shows me the card in the laptop's configuration. Here's the dance I go through each time I reboot:

First: uninstall existing package: sudo apt remove broadcom-sta-dkms bcmwl-kernel-source

Second: make sure driver installer is itself installed: sudo apt install firmware-b43-installer
Third: download drivers: Run this command to insure the list of directories from which software can be downloaded is up to date: sudo apt update
Install the b43 driver: sudo apt install b43-fwcutter

Fourth: Install the Kernel: sudo apt-get update (updates list of where files can be downloaded). Then: sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source.

Fifth: test the driver, to avoid having to reboot:
sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb wl brcmfmac brcmsmac bcma
sudo modprobe wl

2

Hi and welcome.

OK, 1397 means nothing to me. Can you please open a Terminal (Menu | Utilities | Terminal) and enter:

sudo lspci | grep -i wireless

and post back the results please.

3

The terminal did not respond when I pasted the complete sudo command. However, this is what I received in response to sudo lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) 4 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

4

And this is what I see in response to sudo lshw -C network

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
vendor: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
logical name: wlp12s0
version: 01
serial: 70:1a:04:c2:9e:37
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=6.30.223.271 (r587334) ip=192.168.0.108 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
resources: irq:17 memory:f69fc000-f69fffff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0
logical name: enp9s0
version: 13
serial: a4:ba:db:96:e0:df
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 100Mbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sky2 driverversion=1.30 duplex=full latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:18 memory:f68fc000-f68fffff ioport:de00(size=256)

5

I've also downloaded the driver for the BCM 4312 file as discussed in https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=449587, but I would appreciate help on how to install it.

6

Are secure boot and fast boot in your BIOS disabled?
If you have Dualboot with Windows please disable fast startup in Windows energy settings.

When you take a look at Software&Updates > Additional drivers, is a WLAN driver offered there?

7

Secure boot and fast boot are disabled. In fact, this computer is so old, the BIOS doesn’t have secure boot as an option. And no additional drivers are offered in Software and Updates.

8

Note, Zorin 18 is a fork of Ubuntu 24.04:

"Install BCM4312 Driver Ubuntu 24.04

To install the Broadcom BCM4312 wireless driver on Ubuntu 24.04, follow these steps:

  1. Check your hardware: Confirm your BCM4312 card is detected by running lspci | grep -i bcm4312 in the terminal. It should return output indicating the device is present

  2. Install the necessary firmware and drivers:

    • Update your package list: sudo apt update
    • Install the required firmware and driver packages. For the BCM4312 (LP-PHY), the firmware-b43-lpphy-installer package is typically needed. You may also need b43-fwcutter and bcmwl-kernel-source. Run:
      sudo apt install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer b43-fwcutter bcmwl-kernel-source
    • If the firmware-b43-lpphy-installer package is not available or you encounter issues, try installing firmware-b43-installer instead

  3. Load the driver:

    • After installation, load the b43 module with sudo modprobe b43. If you are using the legacy driver, use sudo modprobe b43legacy
    • If the driver is not loaded automatically, you can add it to the list of modules to load at boot by running echo b43 | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

  4. Check for hardware/software blocking:

    • Use the rfkill command to check if your wireless adapter is blocked. Run rfkill list to see the status. If it shows "Hard blocked: yes" or "Soft blocked: yes", you need to unblock it. This can often be done using a physical switch on your laptop or by using the rfkill unblock command

  5. Restart and verify:

    • Reboot your system to ensure all changes take effect.
    • After rebooting, check if the wireless network icon appears in the system tray and if you can connect to a Wi-Fi network.

If the above steps do not resolve the issue, you can try purging conflicting drivers and reinstalling:

sudo apt purge bcmwl-kernel-source b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43-lpphy-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer
sudo apt install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer bcmwl-kernel-source

Then reboot The bcmwl-kernel-source driver is often the easiest solution and can be installed via the "Additional Drivers" tool in Ubuntu.

AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts."

9

Thanks for this. I’ll give it a try when I get some time and report back. Very much appreciate the detailed instructions. Let’s hope AI is more intelligent than artificial

10

I followed the detailed instruction for installing the driver. Alas, upon reboot, I again had no wifi.

11

Do you know if the chipset uses bluetooth? Some manufacturers skimp on having separate bluetooth chips and combine with wifi. Sometimes disabling bluetooth then helps maintain a stable wifi connection.

Go to settings and Bluetooth and turn it off. See if that makes a difference. If not the best alternative would be to buy a usb wifi dongle.

Another issue might be power saving settings. Will post back later on this as plasterer coming soon.

See this thread on power saving:

12

Thanks for your continued help. I don’t know if the machine uses Bluetooth and wifi together. I’ll check this out later and turn off power saving and report back.

13

When I went into settings to change the bluetooth, it told me none is found. I changed the power saving setting to "off." If that doesn't work, I'll just buy a cheap wifi dongle. Thanks for your help. I played with various Linux flavors over the years, and I've been pleasantly surprised by Zorin. Seems a lot more polished and user-friendly than previous distros. And, it resurrected this dinosaur of a computer, except for that wifi thing. Thanks again for your help.

2 Likes
14

That means it does not have it. I have read somewhere that some people have removed wifi chips from notebooks and replaced them with a different one, but that might be tricky if it is a soldering job. I think the dongle is the best way forward. I managed to install a TP-Link T2U dongle in Q4OS:

15

From a quick search, seems a lot of Linux users are happy with that dongle. 16 bucks on Amazon. I'll give it a try. I really appreciate your taking the time to provide me with clear advice. I've built Windows computers, going back to the days of DOS and jumpers, but know only slightly more than zero about this tech. That's part of what makes it fun - the chance to learn something new

1 Like
16

Well you can see a bit of my history in the 'foreward' of the Unofficial Manuals that I wrote where I started (was about 47 when a sixth form student on placement in the school's IT Department where I worked in the Integrated Resource Department gave me a CD with Knoppix on it).

I was blown away with the fact that in 'live mode' (this means the OS is running entirely in RAM and does not touch the hard drive) on entering the desktop, the voice of Borg 1 of Nine announced "All systems operational". My then two youngsters loved playing "Frozen Bubble". Knoppix was generally good for data recovery, but there was a better one, Freespire, the community edition of Linspire.

My last job before retirement was with the Integrated Resource (local government resource based in Secondary (High) School supporting students with low/no vision. The students at the time had been issued with Dell Latitude D600 devices and a student had lost some work on a floppy Device. Dell supplied these notebooks with interchangeable floppy drives with CD-ROM drives which could also be attached via a USB cable. Knoppix failed to boot off the CD-ROM drive, but Freespire picked up both devices without a glitch and I was able to recover the files and save them to a fresh floppy disc.

Main distros that I have tried for any period of time (installed) was Vector Linux (the first distro I supported financially) as I was taken wit the animated backgrounds ("Vector Linux with Enlightenment"), SuSE Linux 9.3 Professional, Sabayon (a fork of Gentoo Linux), and then for a long time Zorin at release 4 (Core) until 15.

I then moved away to Feren OS briefly, then Devuan 3.0 (codename "Beowulf") the only GNU/Linux distro that a blind user can install themselves with a Brailliant (a Braille input/output device) which I used from the end of 2020 until I retired in August 2021, working from home at start of lockdown until I retired as I was not prepared to go back to work as my eldest was at high-risk of Covid-19.

Whilst I missed social interaction with work colleagues, I was glad to be working with GNU/Linux from home, and even more happy not having to use Windows 10 and thankful in November 2019 I purchased a bargain of a 5 machine licence of SoftMaker Office 2018. I had tried preparing work in LibreOffice Writer, but the documents would not display correctly at base, but with TextMaker 2018 there were no issues, which even comes with Arial font, the main font used by those using the Integrated Resource.

I was also fortunate that American Printing House had come out with free Braille Translation software which worked in Feren OS but not in Devuan (they had geared it more towards Ubuntu than Devuan (Debian) and still do, so I had to use a VM of Windows 7 Pro in virt-manager to use the Windows version of Brailleblaster, and later upgrade to Windows 8.1 as the school blocked attempts to connect to their secure site for server access once Windows 7 became end of life.

Sadly it was only a month before I retired that I discovered how to use Remmina Remote to login to the secure portal without the need for Windows at all, which only required one login, whereas Edge required three! Enjoy your GNU/Linux journey.

My current GNU/Linux OS is PCLOS Debian, and also Q4OS a nice stable rolling-release. Looking to try Artix Community Edition on a regular basis at some point as it uses XLibre instead of the awful Wayland which prevents users with Accessibility requirements access to Orca, the screen reader.

Lastly recently passed 70 years of age.

17

Forgot to add in this threasd, have you ever updated the BIOS?

18

That’s quite a history. Seems that we are almost the identical age. I have not updated the BIOS. Honestly, I wouldn’t know how to do it on a device this old. And when it comes to BIOS, I firmly believe that if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Of course, if there’s a good reason to do it, I would certainly investigate it for this machine.