Ubuntu Natty 11.04, Turning the wireless switch off; switches it off permanently!

Question

i'm using an hp pavilion dv2000

i turned the wifi switch off by mistake, the LED turned orange and the wifi got disconnected.

and now when i turn the switch on, it remains orange and the wifi still isn't functional.

this happened before; i found a fix that worked searching google. it was done via terminal commands and i didn't have to download anything but i can't find the solution anymore!

wlan0 shows up when i use:

:~$iwconfig
#BLA BLA BLA
#...
wlan0     IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated  Tx-Power=off
          Retry  long limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

more results:

:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill

:~$ rfkill list all
1: phy0: WirelessLAN
        Soft blocked: yes
        Hard blocked: yes

:~$ sudo rfkill unblock all

:~$ rfkill list all
1: phy0: WirelessLAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: yes

:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill

it's still hard blocked! even though the switch is turned on; gives the same result eitherways

a direction to a page with a working solution is a much appreciated answer!

Answer 1

I had a similar problem on my HP ProBook 6450b after I upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04. I fixed the problem on my machine by disabling the "WiFi state switch" in the laptop's BIOS. (I wouldn't guarantee that this'll work for you though but it's worth a shot. It will mean that your switch will no longer do anything.)

If that doesn't work on its own then try also re-installing your WiFi drivers. Assuming your HP uses the Broadcom BCM43xx series of WiFi chipsets like mine, you can find how to reinstall your WiFi drivers here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx

My laptop uses the Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller so I re-installed the bcmwl-kernel-source package but you may need a different package.