Wireless not detected on a Dell 5720 witha Broadcom BCM 43142?

Question

I recently installed Ubuntu 12.10 on my Dell inspiron 5720.

sudo lshw -C network says :

 *-network UNCLAIMED     
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM43142 802.11b/g/n
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:f1500000-f1507fff

i tried troubleshooting for the same by browsing the forum.. but the debs mentioned are either for amd 64 or i3 32 bit. i checked http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2078800 but it dint help in anyway either. my laptop is an i5 64 bit. i tried the i3 32 bit dev and while installing, it said the package is of bad quality and is not recommended for installation. i installed anyway but it dint make any difference

moreover, i think while trying to install the add-ons for ndisgtk ,it threw error messages for the kernel pack. im losing my mind over this @_@ PS im completely new to linux

---

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately neither of those two worked out for me. when i tried modprobe nothing really happened after reboot.and i just searched for the proprietary driver and looks like there are none for bcm43142

Answer 1

I had the same problem and have managed to solve it with help on this forum ! I've Ubuntu 12.10 64bit on my Dell Inspiron 5520. My chipset is

$ lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4
08:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01)

download this file: http://jas.gemnetworks.com/debian/pool/main/w/wireless-bcm43142/wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms

navigate to the folder you have saved the downloaded file and run this command.

sudo dpkg -i wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb

hope this helps ! :-)

Answer 2

Intel 64 bit processors use the AMD instruction set, so the AMD x86_64 drivers should work fine, assuming you have a 64 bit installation of Ubuntu. Otherwise, i386 should work. I would try the open-source brcmsmac driver (sudo modprobe brcmsmac in terminal then reboot) first and if that doesn't work try the broadcom-wl proprietary driver.

Answer 3

I have provided a patched and for DKMS prepared installation package here.

http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/w-lan-acer-4820tg-broadcom-installation-schlae/#post-2865859