How do I get my Broadcom BCM4313 working correctly?

Question

I've installed ubuntu on a Asus 1015 netbook. Everything worked out of the box except for the Wireless adapter, which i had to install with the Additional Drivers application.

It apparently installed fine and connects to our wireless network, but it only works at a "funny" speed range that goes from 367Bytes to a peak of 3Kb in its best moments. I know for sure the problem is neither the network nor the hardware. Network speeds are normal under windows on this laptop and in other computers with ubuntu aswell.

lspci says the card is a BCM4313 model, but the Addittional Drivers Manager says

these packecege contains Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driverfor use with Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4321-, and BCM4322 based hardware

seems like it installed the wrong driver... Is there anything I can do? I'm not concerned about compiling the driver or stuff like that, but I'm not sure on where to start... any help or guidance will be very, very appreciated.

Answer 1

This reminds me of a problem I recently encountered. I found that davec64's reply in the following forum thread solved it for me - wireless working but ludicrously slow. The fix was really quick and easy, hope it works for you -

this link here

Answer 2

tryThis hope this helps

Answer 3

Thank you guys,

finally I've solved the problem myself, but i'm not sure how. I was about to compile the driver with the source from broadcom dot com and instructions provided here http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt ,but at this step of the instructions

On Ubuntu, you will need headers and tools. Try these commands:
# apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic
# apt-get build-dep linux

build essential and headers were already installed, i just ran the sudo apt-get build-dep linux command and, Voilá!, after one reboot my connection started running at its normal speed.

I'm not sure of what i've done, I guess it builds kernel or driver dependencies (or both) the BCM driver needed this step and the jockey self-configuration ommitted it for some reason.

Anyway, it is fixed. i hope this can help someone else with the same problem.

Kind regards

Answer 4

I have something you can try here. I'm not sure what ubuntu/kernel version you are running so try the natty package. I've detailed the solution at this launchpad bug: Broadcom updated/fixed driver

Just download the natty package from

http://packages.ubuntu.com/natty/amd64/bcmwl-kernel-source/download

ok well thats for 64-bit.

Anyway you just install that, and everything builds fine and once again you can use the wireless networks. I believe we get this trouble when we run newer kernels than those that are in lucid-updates.

its basically installing the new natty driver over the previous one. comes with fixes, etc. works for me!

Answer 5

Had the same slow connection issue with Ubuntu 11.04 and a HP Mini 5103 laptop which comes with Broadcom 4313. After having tried many suggestions, disabling the Broadcom STA Wireless Driver from Additional Drivers window fixed the issue for me.

Answer 6

Broadcom sta drivers worked OK for me and I have the same broadcom in my dell. The slow internet I felt was during powersave mode. Here are the list of broadcom drivers available. I have been using the opensource driver since then and I recommend it over sta drivers. People say it is not available for maverick so you need to install it manually. Broadcom STA driver doesn't work well with BCM4313 provides information on installing it manually OR you can may be use the debain builds.

Answer 7

using NDISWRAPPER was actually good solution but not the best one, using NDISWRAPER sometimes make my machines get freeze, as well as on Mac Book Pro that use BROADCOM BCM4331 you can do "kernel patching" and "re-compiling" the driver.

Read following reference to step by step activating the Broadcom 4313 (work in BCM4331 and i think will be same as your problem) in Ubuntu.

• http://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2011/10/macbook-pro-wireless-broadcom-bcm4331.html
• http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c705283/archives/2011/09/04/linux_support_for_broadcom_4331_wireless_chip_macbook_pro_81/index.html (From Mactel Team)

i hope will help

Answer 8

Drivers for the 4313

Let's just enumerate the driver for Broadcom chipsets and how they work with the 4313:

• Broadcom STA. Suggested by additional drivers. Old. Awful. Absolute junk. Skip it. If you've already installed it, remove it.

• b43-fwcutter. Lots of people see "Broadcom" and jump on this but it's not compatible with the 4313 (which is newer). If you've installed it, purge it.

• ndiswrapper. Even more flaky than the STA driver. I managed to get it working for about 10 minutes before everything imploded.

• brcm80211 aka brcmsmac. This is a (relatively) new driver that was recently added to Ubuntu (since the driver was added to the kernel). This should work well and (in recent version of Ubuntu, Natty and Oneiric) should "Just work". This is the droid you're looking for. Use this driver for the 4313.

  If you're not running Natty or Oneiric, your kernel probably won't have this driver. You need to be running at least 2.6.27 and I'd recommend 2.6.28 as the bare minimum (you can check what you're on by running uname -r).

  If you're behind on versions, I'd suggest the upgrade but for a quick fix, you can take a look at the mainline kernels and try one of those. Installing kernel packages is rarely a risky thing because you can usually just fall back to an old one using the grub boot screen.

You know you're probably on the right driver if you run lsmod | grep brc and you see brcm80211 or brcmsmac in the output.

Blacklisting your way to success

If you're not seeing that, something else has been loaded in and you need to blacklist that. If you can see what has been loaded, great, edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and start adding lines like:

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcma
blacklist ndiswrapper

You obviously need to be careful if you have another wireless device that might be using a conflicting driver as if you blacklist it, you'll break that one too :)

Answer 9

What worked for me for my Broadcom bcm4313 on Asus Eee PC Seashell 1015PEM with Ubuntu 12.04:

• don't use restricted drivers
• add "blacklist bcma" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
• sudo modprobe brcmsmac
• add brcmsmac to /etc/modules
• reboot

Answer 10

The issue with your wifi is that you are using the one forced by Ubuntu, but that does not work. Run the following commands to get the Wifi properly working:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
sudo reboot

After you reboot. Your Wi-Fi should work as intended.

Answer 11

After several hours of trial and error I finally found a solution for "Debian Wheezy (testing)" !! - I think it should work similar on other distributions too. The main problem was the driver brcm80211 (provided by package "firmware-brcm80211") - now I use the driver wl provided by the package "broadcom-sta-dkms" and everything works !

Instructions:

add

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian wheezy main contrib non-free

to

/etc/apt/sources.list

then do

apt-get update

afterwards do

apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms

now unload conflicting modules

modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac

please note: your existing WLAN connection will terminate doing this!

load wl module with

modprobe wl

verify your WLAN chip is working:

iwconfig

configure your WLAN interface as usual - finished! :)

(source: http://wiki.debian.org/wl)