Enabling wireless on Acer Travelmate

hg · 2017-07-05 22:06

This laptop has a wireless card which is detected while Q4OS is being installed. Later when restarting the computer, the wireless connection (ETH1) is disabled. I cannot find a way of enabling it to to download upgrades or anything else.I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

crosscourt · 2017-07-05 22:27

Some of my Dell laptops with Broadcom wireless cards have the same issue and not just with Q4OS. My Dell Vostro 1000 laptops still wont work with Q4OS installed even though Ive confirmed the driver is installed. It happens with other distros as well. I ended up using a USB wifi adapter and havent had any issues since. My Dell Intel wireless card based laptops have no issues at all.

Which model of Acer travelmate do you have and what wireless card is it using?

hg · 2017-07-05 22:51

The computer is an Acer Travelmate 4500. The wireless controller is Intel PRO/wireless 2200BG network card (Lan controller is Broadcom BCM4401 chipset).

The wireless works fine in Win-XP

crosscourt · 2017-07-05 23:31

Pentium M system from 2004, uses the same Intel wireless controller that my Dell D620 uses and my laptop doesnt work with Q4OS(and other distros). It works well with Windows XP but your laptop released during that time and the drivers were easily available.

I would contact the devs and see if they can walk you thru a fix for this issue, as I was never able to get it to work and instead opted for a USB wifi adapter solution(very cheap) which in fact performs better than the 2200BG.

You will need an ethernet wired connection regardless to eventually be able to correct this issue.

hg · 2017-07-06 02:46

When I restarted the computer after Q4OS installation, it said," wireless network card detected, WiFi support enabled". However when I click on the network icon in the taskbar(?) it shows "Device : ETH0, State : down ; Device : ETH1, State : Down".

I thought that the ethernet port might be damaged and baught a USB -> RJ45 connector which shows up as "Device : ETH2, State : Down"

In Win-XP both ports show the error message "a network cable is unplugged" and neither work.

However (in Win-XP) I can see the local WiFi nets and connect with one of them. My browser Seamonkey cannot find the server. Tomorrow I will use a USB drive to install Firefox and see how that behaves.

bin · 2017-07-06 06:02

Yes - I had fun with TravelMates from 2003 too. In the end I used to use a PCMCIA wifi card which was much better than USB dongles.

However, the fact it says it has detected wifi card is good news so this is worth a try.

I am assuming that you are using stock Q4OS network tool.
After boot, right click on the network icon.
Select Deactivate Connection> if available select Disable Wireless
Repeat and Select Enable Wireless - if Disable was not there then just Enable.

I cannot remember if rfkill is included in the default install - I have attached the deb for it if it isn't already installed. You need to get this onto the machine and then in a terminal go to the location you have put it and run 'sudo dpkg -i rfkill*.deb'

Next in terminal run 'sudo rfkill list all'

That should give you some output that includes 'Wireless Lan' and I'm hoping that it says 'Blocked' on either Soft Blocked or Hard Blocked

If it does, then run 'sudo rfkill unblock wifi'

What I'm hoping is that at this point your wifi light will come on.

Attachments:

rfkill_0.5-1_amd64.deb, Size: 7.39 KiB, Downloads: 760

crosscourt · 2017-07-06 16:25

Problem I also had with the Travelmates was the Broadcom controller never worked , even with driver installed. So no wired connection either in my case.

Thats where the USB wifi adapter was a godsend.

In my case bin none of that worked, but hope he has more success.

hg · 2017-07-06 21:06

bin:
rfkill was not included in the i486.iso . Travlemate 4500 has a 32 bit CPU and without PAE :-( that causes a few problems. Installed rfkill and followed you suggestions.

"sudo rfkill list all
0: phy0: wireless LAN
Soft blocked : no
Hard blocked : yes"

"sudo rfkill unblock wifi
............
cmd prompt only with cursor"

The wireless light was off and nothing happened.

I restarted into Win-XP , switched on the wireless and restarted Q4OS still no joy.

There was a mention of a bug in the 'network-manager' (in Ubuntu, I think) with the suggestion to replace it with WICD
Thanks for your help.

cc:
I downloaded the latest (?) Broadcom driver and inside it, is a Linux folder with drivers. I did not know how handle those so just left them for the time I guess I will have to learn Linux commands ....

Dai_trying · 2017-07-06 22:41

If I understand correct hard-blocked means of by a switch, although looking through the specs for your machine it does not appear to have one... I am guessing a key combination might be required to switch it back on (my dell is Fn+prtScr but most are different). If that fails you could check your BIOS settings as there may be an option to change the way wifi is switched on/off.

crosscourt · 2017-07-06 22:44

Hes already said it works with WinXP so its definitely enabled in bios, but doesnt work in Q4OS.

What I find interesting in my case is the USB wifi adapter is Realtek based, an issue sometimes with Linux, but it works fine.

To my knowledge Ubuntu and Q4OS have current Broadcom drivers for that specific chipset given its age. Newer Broadcom drivers do not add any additional support for older chipsets, same with Intel.

Last edited by crosscourt (2017-07-06 22:52)

Dai_trying · 2017-07-06 23:46

crosscourt wrote:

Hes already said it works with WinXP so its definitely enabled in bios, but doesnt work in Q4OS.

Yes, but it may have an option for how it is switched on/off, meaning it might be able to work with the linux kernel.

crosscourt · 2017-07-07 00:08

Im assuming based on his comments that hes aware of a key combination such as fn + f3 that I use with my Dell laptop. Some of my Dell laptops have separate switches on the side of the laptop not key combinations, D430 for example.

bin · 2017-07-07 08:00

Oh well, it was worth a try. As I recall - and I binned the TM about 5 years back - the Wifi key on the TM is programmed by Windows which made it especially awkward. Other laptops the switch - whatever key combo - normally worked OK

I certainly never got the built in wifi working on mine, but PCMCIA Wireless card worked a treat.

crosscourt · 2017-07-07 22:16

You can get a USB wifi adapter for under $5 that performs much better than the wifi card in the Acer. You can move it to other devices if needed.

Dai_trying · 2017-07-08 08:53

Yes I agree it is very cheap to get a new and working wifi dongle and I bought one some time ago which I use when I can't get a cable to a machine for some reason or other, the only problem I have with mine is that it requires a patched version of the firmware as it drops connection frequently (I now have a flash drive with a setup script for it ). But that is down to me not doing enough research before buying I guess having said that I rarely use it even though it is a fast (300Mb/s) device as I prefer to use whatever device is built in to a machine even if it is slower, but that's just because I like to keep things as simple as possible.

crosscourt · 2017-07-08 15:45

The range of wifi adapters has improved hugely since 2003 and so far all of my wifi adapters work fine with a variety of distros. Im a hardware geek and even Im not going to torture myself over internal hardware that doesnt want to cooperate. There are limitations when youre running 13-14 year old hardware and upgrades that are this easy are very welcome.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2017-07-05 22:06

Enabling wireless on Acer Travelmate

#2 2017-07-05 22:27

Re: Enabling wireless on Acer Travelmate

#3 2017-07-05 22:51

Re: Enabling wireless on Acer Travelmate

#4 2017-07-05 23:31

Re: Enabling wireless on Acer Travelmate

#5 2017-07-06 02:46

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#6 2017-07-06 06:02

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#7 2017-07-06 16:25

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#8 2017-07-06 21:06

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#9 2017-07-06 22:41

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#10 2017-07-06 22:44

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#11 2017-07-06 23:46

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