Need help. Wireless does not work after kernel upgrade

Monday, 31 July 2006

I had ndiswrapper and wireless networking working on my eMachines laptop 
running Fedora Core 4 with kernel 2.6.15-1.1831_FC4. This afternoon I 
upgraded to kernel 2.6.17-1.2142_FC4. I upgraded ndiswrapper to 
ndiswrapper-1.18-1.lvn4 and 
kernel-module-ndiswrapper-2.6.17-1.2142_FC4-1.18-1.lvn4.

lspci shows my wireless network adapter:
00:0c.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g 
Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

I still see the wireless driver with 'ndiswrapper -l':

Installed drivers:
netbc564                driver installed, hardware present

When I try to bring up the wireless interface, I get

[root@proteus log]# ifup eth1
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
Failed to bring up eth1.

In the messages I list below, I see references to "bcm43xx". Was there a 
native driver developed between kernels 2.6.15 and 2.6.17? Should I be 
making use of that? How do I do so? If not, how do I rescue my ndiswrapper?

Thanks!

Andrew Robinson

Jul 31 19:47:53 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Chip ID 0x4306, rev 0x3
Jul 31 19:47:53 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Number of cores: 5
Jul 31 19:47:53 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Core 0: ID 0x800, rev 0x4, 
vendor 0x4243, enabled
Jul 31 19:47:53 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Core 1: ID 0x812, rev 0x5, 
vendor 0x4243, disabled
Jul 31 19:47:53 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Core 2: ID 0x80d, rev 0x2, 
vendor 0x4243, enabled
Jul 31 19:47:53 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Core 3: ID 0x807, rev 0x2, 
vendor 0x4243, disabled
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Core 4: ID 0x804, rev 0x9, 
vendor 0x4243, enabled
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: PHY connected
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Detected PHY: Version: 2, Type 
2, Revision 2
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Detected Radio: ID: 2205017f 
(Manuf: 17f Ver: 2050 Rev: 2)
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Radio turned off
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Radio turned off
Jul 31 19:47:54 proteus kernel: ndiswrapper version 1.18 loaded 
(preempt=no,smp=no)

Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: set security called
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx:    .active_key = 0
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx:    .level = 1
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx:    .enabled = 1
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx:    .encrypt = 1
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: SoftMAC: Associate: Scanning for 
networks first.
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: SoftMAC: Associate: failed to initiate 
scan. Is device up?
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: PHY connected
Jul 31 19:47:55 proteus kernel: bcm43xx: Error: Microcode 
"bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.