Acer Aspire 4520 WiFi button

[Michael Haney]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Mike McMullin <mwmcmlln at mnsi.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 12:22 +0100, Colin Brace wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> This past weekend I upgraded my Acer Aspire notebook to 8.10. For some
>> reason, I can't get the wireless working.
>>
>> The 4520 has an Atheros wireless chipset. lspci:
>>
>> 07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x
>> 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
>>
>> Following the release notes, I installed
>> "linux-backports-modules-2.6.27-7-generic" which I understand contains
>> the ath5k module that should support the AR242x chipset.
>
>  I'm on an Aspire with that chipset and I scrapped the ath5k in favour
> of the older mad-wifi which works like a champ after you get it set up.
> I dl'ed the driver file from the mad-wifi site, unpacked it, and did the
> make and make-install, the down side is that i need to redo those steps
> at every kernel update, but my wifi works.
>
>> However, I can't seem to switch the WiFi on. Pressing the WiFi button
>> has no effect; no LED is switched on or off. Googling the issue, I
>> encountered this post which alludes to the problem:
>>
>> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4172878&postcount=105
>>
>> The writer suggests that it might be necessary to boot Windows (!) to
>> switch the wireless on. Unfortunately, I erased Vista when I bought the
>> machine.
>
>  Is your wifi switch (software/hardware) turned on?
>
>> FWIW, with my previous Aspire, of which the wireless worked flawless
>> under Ubuntu,  the WiFi interface was activated by default at boot time;
>> a bright orange LED indicated this.
>>
>> Any one have any ideas for me?
>>
>> TIA
>>
>> --
>>   Colin Brace
>>   Amsterdam
>>   http://lim.nl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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I've got the same laptop.  The button turns the wifi on and off in
Windows and is tied in to the Acer Empowerment software crap you have
to run on it to make the hardware work right.  I've look in the Acer
Aspire 4520 BIOS and there is nothing for turning on the wifi adapter,
its done by software.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
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