Acer Aspire 4520 WiFi button

[Karl Larsen]

Michael Haney wrote:
> 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.
>
>   
    Well my new Compaq has according to lspci the exact same  WiFi 
devise. So your saying too bad, there is no way to use WiFi on a Linux? 
I do have Vista running and it uses WiFi fine. I have the WiFi button 
above the keyboard. I too find nothing in BIOS about WiFi.



Karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
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