"Wireless disabled by hardware switch" after suspend and other hardware buttons ineffective - how can I solve this?

Question

I have recently purchased a Novatech nFinity N1410 laptop and am having problems with the wireless, which

sudo lshw -C network 

tells me is Centrino Wireless-N 2230 and using the iwlwifi driver.

The problem is that after the device has been suspended, I am not able to get the wireless working again without a restart. The network indicator states that the wireless disabled by hardware switch.

Though Fn+F2 is meant to be the wireless switch,

xev 

tells me that the system doesn't see it as anything at all when I press this hardware combination. Also, though the brightness up/down buttons work fine, the volume up/down buttons do not work either.

What can I do to fix this? I am running Ubuntu 12.10 with all available updates installed.

Solution 1

I've been looking into buying one of these and have been looking for potential problems, looks like your solution can be found in the novatech forums:

1. Simply created a new file called brcm.sh

2. Inserted the below code and save:

   #!/bin/bash
   # Simple bash script to fix resume from suspend issues...
   # Place this script in /etc/pm/sleep.d/
   # then chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/brcm.sh
   
   case $1 in
     hibernate)
       /sbin/modprobe -r brcm80211
     ;;
     suspend)
       /sbin/modprobe -r brcm80211
     ;;
     resume)
       /sbin/modprobe brcm80211
     ;;
     thaw)
       /sbin/modprobe brcm80211
     ;;
   esac
   

3. Placed it in /etc/pm/sleep.d/

4. Made it executable:

   sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/brcm.sh
   

Source: http://forum.novatech.co.uk/showthread.php?25709-nFinity-N1411-solved-Ubuntu-12-10-install-and-wifi-wake-from-suspend&p=331411

Solution 2

i had the same problem and i have no hardware switch just F2 for disabling and enabling wifi instead of using unblock wifi try blocking it using

$ sudo rfkill block wifi 

i know it sounds crazy but it worked for me and i'm using a dell laptop and we have the same wifi driver after using unblock

1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

after using block

1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

and to remove the soft block just click on the wifi button on the top right corner of your unity desktop and select Enable Wi-Fi

Comments

[ananaso]

Are you sure you haven't bumped a switch anywhere on the outside of your laptop? I've done that on more than one occasion.

[fahadayaz]

@DaimyoKirby The hardware Fn button is Fn + F2, however this does not do anything at all. Also, after a restart, the wireless starts working again.

[fahadayaz]

Unfortunately, this does not work. rfkill says that my wireless is hard blocked. However, my hardware switch, Fn + F2 doesn't register as doing anything at all. The wireless is fixed after a reboot.