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I have an HP 2000 Series laptop, which wireless apparently worked yesterday, I let my best friend play on it, then noticed he switched to my desktop while I was gone. I later find out that my Internet isn't working on that laptop. So, I then notice that my wireless key was stuck in off mode, I first try going win to the BIOS and restoring to default settings, it didn't work. I also tried checking to see if I have any drivers to download, which apparently I had nothing. And, I cannot perform a fresh install as something happened after installing Ubuntu that locked me out of booting from CD/DVD. I also can't find a flash drive that has the ability to make a computer boot from it, I have also seen another post here but it didn't work for me.

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  • please use lspci -v the -v will show what driver is in use.
    – mchid
    Jul 23, 2014 at 6:10
  • "disabled by hardware switch" means use your fn keys or hot key to turn it back on. It should be fn + F12 I think on your model. Make sure fn keys are enabled in bios.
    – mchid
    Jul 23, 2014 at 6:32

3 Answers 3

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Don't use ndisgtk

You say it was working fine the other day so lets get it working again. Start off with the following commands.

sudo iwconfig

What is the output? If it says something about a hardware switch, you need to use your fn key switch to turn wifi back on.

Also, is wlan0 listed? If so run the following command:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

If not, run these commands instead.

sudo modprobe rt2800pci
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwconfig

Now, it should be listed and wifi should work.

There's no need to install the driver when the driver is included as a kernel module sudo modprobe rt2800pci calls on the driver "rt2800pci" and puts it in use. wlan0 is your wireless device and sudo ifconfig wlan0 up brings this device up. Please post any errors.

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  • Apparantly, after trying this, every command got errors, It didn't detect a wlan0 for some reason (I tried once resetting the network socket because I thought something was wrong with the network, then I notice the wireless hardware switch is turned off, and pressing it did absolutely nothing.) Plus, it said "no wireless extensions" when entering "sudo iwconfig"
    – user245115
    Jul 28, 2014 at 20:55
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Make sure the appropriate wlan card driver is still installed. Put in "sudo lspci" and post the output

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  • i.imgur.com/z5294u4.jpg
    – user245115
    Jul 16, 2014 at 17:02
  • search for the driver for the network controller card you have and install that
    – sbergeron
    Jul 16, 2014 at 18:06
  • Wait, how can I get the driver without a network? My other Ubuntu PC is destroyed due to failed hard drive and I only have a working Windows PC.
    – user245115
    Jul 17, 2014 at 0:57
  • look up the driver, download a deb file, and install it that way
    – sbergeron
    Jul 17, 2014 at 4:05
  • or use a windows driver and find a utility for ubuntu to install them and download the deb of that utility
    – sbergeron
    Jul 17, 2014 at 4:05
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I had the identical problem -- same model number for the laptop, etc. (As a minor difference, I had to leave the classroom and students messed with my laptop in order to postpone a midterm. BTW, I now have some wonderful screen savers if anyone hates their friends.)

In addition to the suggestions above, specifically,

sudo modprobe rt2800pci
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwconfig

I found it necessary to boot to a slightly older version of the kernel (where the module was available), and add these

sudo rmmod -f hp-wmi
sudo rfkill unblock all
rfkill list all

Then, and this is actually harder than it sounds, I had to wait a moment or so for the orange light to go off. (I'm impatient. I'm certain I used some special magic words which may not have helped, but made me feel better.)

Finally, I used the usual menu method of turning the network off and then off again so I could enable wireless access normally.

Convoluted, but it worked. Everything returned to normal -- at least enough so that I could use networking to solve the dozen or so other brainteasers the students left behind.

(Professor: 1; students: 0. They didn't find the midterm because it was never on the laptop. I use that machine only for demos and lectures. Next time, I deliberately leave behind a longer, harder midterm. Snicker.)

Lingering Question: How did they cause the problem in the first place?

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