"Wifi Disabled by Hardware Switch" - Ubuntu 14.04.3 - Acer Aspire ES1-521

Question

Reposting as the previous question got super long with the end result being told to update the question.

Bought a new laptop. Had Windows on it. Deleted windows, now Ubuntu is the only OS. During install, detected my wi-fi just fine, updates were installed, etc.

Rebooted, "network disabled by hardware switch". Googled the problem, found a whole bunch of potential fixes, none of which has helped. I'll list them at the bottom, along with outputs from various solutions.

Once the laptop is connected to Ethernet or USB tethered to my phone for 20-30 minutes, wi-fi magically starts working again.... until it suspends or reboots, then its "disabled by hardware switch" again.

There is not an actual hardware button, but a Fn+F3 function that SHOULD enable/disable it. This appears to do nothing at all, however. All other Fn keys work fine (The trackpad also appears to not function, but I figure that is unrelated and I'll tackle fixing it at a later date).

I've checked the BIOS, and there are no options at all related to networking. I reset all BIOS settings to default anyway, with no change.

Output results:

angus@angus-Aspire-ES1-521:~$ rfkill list all  
0: phy0: Wireless LAN  
    Soft blocked: no  
    Hard blocked: Yes  
1: acer-bluetooth: Bluetooth  
    Soft blocked: no  
    Hard blocked: no  
2: hci0: Bluetooth  
    Soft blocked: no  
    Hard blocked: no  

angus@angus-Aspire-ES1-521:~$ lspci -knn | grep Net -A2  
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0036] (rev 01)  
Subsystem: Lite-On Communications Inc Device [11ad:0642]  
Kernel driver in use: ath9k  

angus@angus-Aspire-ES1-521:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up  
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill  

Answer 1

I have solved purchasing a wifi external adapter (in my case a MediaTek 802.11 n WLAN), and totally disable the internal wireless card.

I have tried this with Ubuntu 16.04, but I think that it's the same with previous versions.

Try following this steps:

1) Open a terminal window.

2) Digit:sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

3) In gedit editor, scroll up to last line, press enter and add this line: blacklist ath9k

4) Save the file and restart ubuntu, (take care the wifi adapter connected to the pc at restart).

I hope this help you to resolve with this workaround. Good Luck.

Answer 2

Here's a solution that has just worked for me:

1. Shut down
2. Disconnect the battery for a while.
3. Reconnect battery and start up.

Presto! Wifi was enabled again!