PC repair

[Richard Frankum]

I was going to the space on Mondays last month as part of my summer vacation.
We have a laptop in the cabinet which is quite functional, except, I
couldn't activate the wireless.
At the previous space, we had it connected with ethernet so it didn't
matter, but there's no close switch in the new space.
Anyone want to take a shot at fixing it?

Below is a really old email regarding the laptop.
--Richard



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Takaaki Kato <takaaki.k...@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 14 2009, 9:26 pm
Subject: Donating a notebook
To: TokyoHackerSpace


Hi - I'm visiting the space tomorrow to drop my DELL notebook for
donation.

Everything works except for the wifi. The wifi problem seems to be
caused by something I did when I was playing with Ubuntu. I seem to
have overwrite the firmware for the wifi.

I'm not familiar with Windows or hardware, but I'm guessing someone
could fix the issue.

https://gist.github.com/b17d3438810581b3db72

If you guys don't need it, just sell it and buy things you need.

- Takaaki

--
--Richard Frankum

[Nava Whiteford]

I used to have one of those. IIRC the wifi card is PCI express so could be replaced if required.

Also, it has a "wifi enable" switch on the side. Worth checking that's not broken (or off :)).

Nav

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[MRE]

its a touch button.. no physical switching action.

[Mikele]

it is a switch
Emery, we were on it last month, remember... we ended up going wired.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tokyohackerspace/-/4MTW__hrrBIJ.

[Torsten Wagner]

Hi,

thats odd, firmware is loaded during runtime under Linux and not permanent.
I do not know of any "have-to-flash-it" approach.
Either its a broken wifi-switch or the card gets broken by a total
unrelated event.
Maybe he opened up to check the card and the antenna cable is not in place?

Anyhow, if you can write a bit more about the systems we might get on track...
Is the card recognized by the OS?
Does it try to connect?
Does it timeout or is there an error message right away?
Any other activity visible (e.g. LEDs blinking)

Once I found wifi-cards at PC-net for a couple of 100 Yen.
The cheaply quick and dirty solution would be to attach a USB-dongle.

Totti

[Richard Frankum]

I was hampered by 1) not knowing how wifi works on Ubuntu (it's a
different beast from a regular device file in /dev, right?) and 2) not
knowing the root password for the system.

> Anyhow, if you can write a bit more about the systems we might get on track...
> Is the card recognized by the OS?
> Does it try to connect?

--
--Richard Frankum

[Torsten Wagner]

Do you still use ubuntu on that machine?

Well basically you are right, its like all other device nodes too.
But you do not have to look out that deep

what does
ifconfig -a

report? Any sort of wifi device?

If not, does the card appears in the output of

lspci

or

lsusb

if you still tried to use Ubuntu, my first idea would be that the
orignal owner might messed up the firmware file normally found under
/lib/firmware or /usr/lib/firmware.
This is a little hex-file loaded by the kernel module during boot up.
If it is missing, the loading of the kernel module will fail and the
device will be completely unknown to Linux ergo no wifi.
The firmware hex are by nature proprietary blobs and different distros
with different philosophies deal different with them. Not sure how
ubuntu works on this but I would guess they have a package for this,
which need to be installed along with the kernel. Some exotic strange
cards require extensive fiddling under linux. E.g. extraction of the
hex file from the original windows drivers by some special tools.
Other cards do not work at all. If you send me the description of the
card I can check on this. Anyhow if it is too exotic and to much pain
a different mini-PCI card or a dongle might do an easier and better
job.

Totti

CC. Many linux friendly mini-PCI wifi cards and some USB dongles allow
to set-up the wifi into hostap mode creating a mobile
wifi-hotspot/router/server/firewall/whatever.... if someone is going
to get a new mini-PCI card, that might be a nice add-on. All mobile
devices and laptops of members can be easily connect together via such
a laptop during a THS-on-tour activity.

[Taylan Ayken]

Yep, still Ubuntu. Can get the root password out of it by booting into single user mode. :)

I have a similar problem with my netbook too, I have to compile and install the module for my wifi everytime there is a kernel update as they chose to use another module for my wifi card and it crashes my system randomly. :)

I'll fiddle with the thing tomorrow. I can always install a new distro on it BTW.

---

From: Torsten Wagner <torsten...@gmail.com>
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 3, 2012 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: [THS:20033] PC repair

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[Kalin KOZHUHAROV]

Minasan,

let's save some bytes and bandwidth - I'll look at it tomorrow and
after thorough testing, will ask for help if needed, or report
success.

I know some people are working on a remote diagnosis methods (for
people), but at least the patient is "on-line" with those.

Cheers,
Kalin,

[Torsten Wagner]

module blacklist!?

>> tokyohackerspa...@googlegroups.com.

>> For more options, visit this group at
>> http://groups.google.com/group/tokyohackerspace?hl=en.
>>
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[Torsten Wagner]

If it is just a strange wifi card which does not play well with Linux,
its almost not worse to try all those different dirty hacks... they
break if kernels get updated, they crash randomly and they might be
worse to the performance too.... I got Linux friendly miniPCI wifi
cards for 500 Yen at PC net and I guess you can get them too somewhere
in Akihabara.
Check tomorrow which card is used, check about the Linux-friendly
factor and replace it if needed.
You save hours of frustrating patching and fixing and reading how-tos
and swearing and ranting and crying and drinking....
well the last might be not that bad...

Totti

CC. @ Taylan, the same might work for your netbook ;)

[Taylan Ayken]

Well, it was working really well until 6 months or so ago. I created a script which compiles and installs the modules. I just run it after each kernel upgrade. :)

---

From: Torsten Wagner <torsten...@gmail.com>
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Monday, September 3, 2012 8:50 PM
Subject: Re: [THS:20038] PC repair

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[Richard Frankum]

Just wanted to update - Kalin's "reporting success" was done Tuesday.
The root password for the laptop has been changed & reported.
Wifi on it works, look for the wifi symbol somewhere on a
non-intuitive section of the menu bar to check the settings.

Thanks to Kalin, Taylen, and a rather long ethernet cable!

--Richard

On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Minasan,
>
> let's save some bytes and bandwidth - I'll look at it tomorrow and
> after thorough testing, will ask for help if needed, or report
> success.

> Cheers,
> Kalin,


--
--Richard Frankum

[Mikele]

EXCELLENT!!!
\m/

--
--Richard Frankum