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NoPantsJim
10-04-07, 07:10 AM
I've got an Inspiron 1720 notebook with a Dell 1505 Wireless-N mini-card with an On/Off switch on the side as well as a small 'Wifi" led to the right of the keyboard. When the laptop first arrived with vista installed, the wifi worked fine and the wifi light would light up blue when turned on.

Now I'm running Fedora and I've tried NDISwrapper, Madwifi, and the Linuxant WLan Driver Loader and none seem to find the card. No matter the position of the power switch, the 'wifi' led stays off continuously.

I'm guessing there is some sort of software that allows the wifi card to be turned on in Vista but is missing in Fedora. Any ideas?

chunkey
10-04-07, 05:31 PM
Hmm, AFAIK you have a Intel 4965AGN card... You can find a native driver over here (www.intellinuxwireless.org).

However you should not trust the _blinking leds_.

NoPantsJim
10-04-07, 06:14 PM
Hmm, AFAIK you have a Intel 4965AGN card

I opened my laptop this morning and the card has a broadcom label, but I'll try those drivers anyway, can't hurt I suppose.

chunkey
10-04-07, 06:48 PM
I opened my laptop this morning and the card has a broadcom label, but I'll try those drivers anyway, can't hurt I suppose.

Ahh, Dell lists Intel's 4965AGN (aka: Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N) is an option... but it's probably not the default choice...
172x Specs (http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspnnb_172x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~tab=specstab)


I don't think that the Intel driver will work with your broadcom. Do you know which broadcom chip do you have? lspci -nn.

NoPantsJim
10-05-07, 12:06 AM
0c:00.0 Network Controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation Uknown device [14e4:4328] (rev 03)

I'll open the case to read what the card says itself tomorrow, I've had too many pints of the black stuff this evening to trust myself with a screwdriver near the laptop I dropped that much money on less than a month ago.