No support for Dell Inspiron 1501 and E1505 notebook's 802.11g

You can find the chipset information by downloading the driver and extracting it (Self-Extracting .EXE File) from Dell's website for the Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook's 802.11a/g/n wireless. I have included the info and links below.

Download the driver here:
http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R140747.EXE

Or here:
ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R140747.EXE

Driver website:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R140747&SystemID=INS_PNT_1501&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=9806&devlib=0&typecnt=1&vercnt=7&formatcnt=1&libid=5&fileid=187881

Release Title: Network: Dell _Wireless (US) WLAN Card, Wireless 1350 WLAN MiniPCI Card, Wireless 1350 WLAN PC Card, Wireless 1370 WLAN MiniPCI Card, Wireless 1390 WLAN ExpressCard, Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1450 WLAN miniPCI Card, Wireless 1470 Dual-Band WLAN miniPCI Card, Wireless 1490 Dual-Band WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN mini Card, Driver, Windows XP, Windows XP x64, Multi Language, Multi System, v.4.100.15.5 / 4.100.15.8, A10

Download this driver if you reside in the US. This release supports the Dell Wireless 1350, 1370, 1450,1390, 1490, and 1500 series Mini Card, MiniPCI and PC Card devices (not USB).

The Dell Wireless WLAN Card has the following features:

IEEE 802.11a operation (5-GHz frequency band)
IEEE 802.11g operation (2.4-GHz frequency band)
Network data rate of up to 54 Mbit/s
Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery support
Cisco Compatible Extensions v4 support
IPv6 support
Smart card authentication support, including authentication during single sign-on
Dell Wireless WLAN Card Utility for managing your wireless networks, running hardware tests, and getting wireless network-related information
Wireless Network Connection Settings tool for connecting to advanced infrastructure networks
Wireless Network Wizard for connecting to basic infrastructure networks and ad hoc networks and creating ad hoc networks

New for this release

Windows XP 64-bit support
Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card only: Draft IEEE 802.11n operation (2.4-GHz frequency band and 5-GHz frequency band) with a network data rate of up to 270 Mbit/s for 40 MHz bandwidth channel and 130 Mbit/s for 20 MHz bandwidth channel

Fixes a security vulnerability related to wireless beacons

NOTE: Not all Dell Wireless WLAN Card models support IEEE 802.11a (5-GHz) or IEEE 802.11n operation.

The Dell Wireless WLAN Card works with any IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ wireless router/AP or wireless client network adapter.

Thank you

Could you please attach the output of lspci -vnn > lspci.txt

Thanks
chuck

Here is mine. From a Dell Latitude 131L, with the same wireless card as inspiron 1501, I think. I can drive it with ndiswrapper very smoothly. and I'm now using this driver on a customized 2.6.20-1 kernel

post a little too fast

No linux driver available track to see if one is available.

ubuntu@Dell:~$ dmesg
[17179569.184000] Linux version 2.6.17-11-generic (root@terranova) (gcc version 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-13ubuntu5)) #2 SMP Thu Feb 1 19:52:28 UTC 2007 (Ubuntu 2.6.17-11.35-generic)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009dc00 (usable)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 000000000009dc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000000ce000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000077e70000 (usable)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000077e70000 - 0000000077e81000 (ACPI data)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000077e81000 - 0000000077f00000 (ACPI NVS)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 0000000077f00000 - 0000000080000000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000e0000000 - 00000000f0000000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec10000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fff80000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
[17179569.184000] 1022MB HIGHMEM available.
[17179569.184000] 896MB LOWMEM available.
[17179569.184000] found SMP MP-table at 000f8780
[17179569.184000] On node 0 totalpages: 491120
[17179569.184000] DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:0
[17179569.184000] Normal zone: 225280 pages, LIFO batch:31
[17179569.184000] HighMem zone: 261744 pages, LIFO batch:31
[17179569.184000] DMI present.
[17179569.184000] ACPI: RSDP (v000 PTLTD ) @ 0x000f8750
[17179569.184000] ACPI: RSDT (v001 DELL M08 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x77e7a60c
[17179569.184000] ACPI: FADT (v001 ATI Bowfin 0x06040000 ATI 0x000f4240) @ 0x77e80c4d
[17179569.184000] ACPI: TCPA (v002 AMD 0x06040000 PTEC 0x00000000) @ 0x77e80cc1
[17179569.184000] ACPI: SSDT (v001 PTLTD POWERNOW 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000001) @ 0x77e80cf3
[17179569.184000] ACPI: MADT (v001 PTLTD APIC 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x77e80e08
[17179569.184000] ACPI: MCFG (v001 PTLTD MCFG 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x77e80e4e
[17179569.184000] ACPI: SLIC (v001 DELL M08 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x77e80e8a
[17179569.184000] ACPI: DSDT (v001 ATI SB600 0x06040000 MSFT 0x03000000) @ 0x00000000
[17179569.184000] ATI board detected. Disabling timer routing over 8254.
[17179569.184000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x8008
[17179569.184000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
[17179569.184000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
[17179569.184000] Processor #0 15:12 APIC version 16
[17179569.184000] ACPI: LAPIC_NMI (acpi_id[0x00] high edge lint[0x1])
[17179569.184000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0])
[17179569.184000] IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 1, version 33, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23
[17179569.184000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override.
[17179569.184000] Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 1 I/O APICs
[17179569.184000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information
[17179569.184000] Allocating PCI resources starting at 88000000 (gap: 80000000:60000000)
[17179569.184000] Built 1 zonelists
[17179569.184000] Kernel command line...

Let me know if you need more info...

Thanks

It seems that bcm43xx driver now works with Feisty's kernel 2.6.20-12.
I haven't tested the speed yet but I'm getting so far the same speeds as with ndiswrapper (4mbit)

The broadcom card shipped with the Dell 1501 still doesn't work out of box with Feisty! That's too bad since it releases tomorrow. ;- (

i've also got a dell inspiron 1501 with a dell wireless 1490 card. it doesn't work with the version of bcm43xx provided with feisty, but you can install the latest standalone version of bcm43xx from ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches/bcm43xx-softmac-sa.tar.bz2 . this works for me on feisty amd64.

for a howto see forum http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=434946.

This is still a problem, as of Gutsy Tribe 3.

Dell 1501

The bcm43xx included does not work.

Is there any additional information I can give you guys to help fix this?

i've tested with dell my inspiron 1501 a number of the linux live cd distributions with 2.6 kernel and found that no one works!
list of the tested distros:
- lunar linux
- gnome live cd
- open suse 10.2

all are freezing on boot with default options

On Gutsy Tribe 4...

On Gutsy Tribe 4...

This is still a problem on Gutsy Tribe 4... Is this being worked on?

Windows Vista Home Premium reports this device as a Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card. I hope this helps.

Windows Vista Home Premium also reports a Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller. Good luck!

Sorry for so many posts, but I also wanted to note that this bug applies to the Dell Inspiron E1505 as well, and probably many other Dell notebooks... I know this because I have both a 1501 and an E1505 notebook. Here is the attached terminal output from the E1505 booted from the Gutsy Tribe 4 i386 live CD.

The Dell Inspiron E1505 also uses a Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller and a Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-Card.

Here is the attached terminal output from the Dell Inspiron 1501 booted from the Gutsy Tribe 4 i386 live CD.

"bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed.

This repeats many times.

> "bcm43xx_microcode5.fw" not available or load failed

This is shown, because the firmware of the broadcom card is proprietary and therefore not shipped with Ubuntu. You have to install it over the restricted hardware manager.

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this bug to the new "linux" package. However, development has already began for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. It would be helpful if you could test the upcoming release and verify if this is still an issue - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . If the issue still exists, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux" task from "Incomplete" to "New". We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Thanks!

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

I also have a Dell Inspiron 1501 with a BCM4312 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (so says lspci) card. For me it is working very fine in Intrepid with the 2.6.27 kernel.

The only problem is that the b43-fwcutter needed for installation is not shipped with the CD images, but that's another issue...