Chosen Solution

This is a new problem. Wireless worked fine in Linux until two days ago. Now pressing button wont turn it on. Trying with a live disc also doesn’t help so I know its not the software. In Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, it is acting up as well but still works. In Windows, I have to press the button twice to turn on the wireless card after it boots up and then the switch turns off if the computer is idle for a few minutes. “Allow computer to turn off this device to save power” is unchecked. Why is it doing this and how to fix?

Just you mentioning the need to push the button multiple times says to me it is a hardware problem or system setting in the BIOS that is the problem. The WIFI card should work and be able to be turned on if there is no operating system or drives for that matter installed. If it isn’t a setting in the BIOS I suggest you get a USB WIFI card . I got a wireless B/G/N USB card from Newegg a couple of months ago for less than $20 including shipping. So they are coming down in price. I’m getting 250MBs from my N router to my laptop any where in the house now. I volunteer here and am here most days. So I have no problem helping you through this, if I can. But I always try to steer my paying customers to the most economical route, that fits their needs. When you consider time is money, that is what I am trying to do here. It is the same suggestion I would give a paying customer that described the problem as you have and I would do that over the phone and not make a dime off them - this time.

I HAVE THIS SAME PROBLEM. Over a year ago, WiFi stopped working in Linux, but it did in Windows only if I re-enabled it every time it booted and resumed from sleep. But just minutes ago, it “relapsed” and went back into this weird condition. I hope someone knows an answer. (HP G60-549dx) EDIT: Through a combination of holding the WiFi button, and toggling it in GNOME, it came on! Ymmv.

Here’s a definitive and easy fix! Plug the HP G60 into an ethernet feed so you have connectivity. In the terminal, type the following: sudo apt-get install rfkill then, once you have rfkill, type: sudo rfkill unblock all I found this on http://www.linuxquestions.org/ after trying MANY queries.

Simply using rfkill might not have the desired effect. But I’ve found recommendations what else can be done – http://superuser.com/a/698649/65570 :

  1. First, do rmmod -f ath5k, and then rfkill unblock all;
  2. Use the special parameter of ath5k module to ignore the hardware block (because the WiFi-device might receive wrong signals from the button, for example, if the firmware doesn’t correspod to way it has been connected, and so on).
  3. Suppress the loading of hp-wmi (BTW, what’s the purpose of this module? modinfo says: HP laptop WMI hotkeys driver; “The entry for hp-wifi is for the software that monitors the switch.”): ** “Workaround #2: Add hp-wmi to modprobe blacklist. Again, this causes only phy0 wireless to be reported and phy0 always accurately reflects the state of the hardware (both soft and hard blocked).” ** “Instead of removing my ath9k and adding it back, I simply removed the hp-wifi module like so. rmmod hp-wmi (do this, this removes the hp-wifi module which you don’t need now )”