How to remove Wifi Hard Lock for Intel PRO/Wireless Lan 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter

Question

I have a friend's laptop (Medion MD 41100) to fix and installed Lubuntu due to its age. It runs an Intel PRO/Wireless Lan 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter wifi card. Using rfkill list it says

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft Blocked: No
Hard Blocked: Yes

Now I'm relatively new to linux, so perhaps I missed something obvious here.

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What I've tried:

It has a Wifi key, but that doesn't do anything (neither the LED is shining, nor is the Hard Block disappearing).

rfkill unblock wifi doesn't help

I have looked into the BIOS, the Wifi option allows me "Last State" and "Disabled", so I set it to "Last State".

When trying ip link set wlp2s1 up it tells me "RTNETLINK answers: Operation not possible due to RF-kill"

In some answer I read to enable proprietary drivers, but that has been enabled by default as far as I know. It certainly is checked now.

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Leaves me with the question: What else can I do to remove the Hard Block on the wifi?

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As Requested the output for lsmod:

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_intel8x0           40960  2
snd_ac97_codec        110592  1 snd_intel8x0
ac97_bus               16384  1 snd_ac97_codec
lpc_ich                24576  0
ipw2100                77824  0
snd_pcm                90112  2 snd_ac97_codec,snd_intel8x0
pcmcia                 57344  0
libipw                 32768  1 ipw2100
snd_timer              32768  1 snd_pcm
lib80211               16384  1 libipw
yenta_socket           40960  0
snd                    69632  8 snd_ac97_codec,snd_timer,snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
soundcore              16384  1 snd
pcmcia_rsrc            24576  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            28672  3 yenta_socket,pcmcia,pcmcia_rsrc
cfg80211              618496  2 ipw2100,libipw
joydev                 24576  0
input_leds             16384  0
serio_raw              20480  0
mac_hid                16384  0
sch_fq_codel           20480  2
parport_pc             32768  1
ppdev                  24576  0
lp                     20480  0
parport                49152  3 lp,parport_pc,ppdev
ip_tables              24576  0
x_tables               32768  1 ip_tables
autofs4                45056  2
btrfs                1196032  0
xor                    28672  1 btrfs
zstd_compress         155648  1 btrfs
raid6_pq              106496  1 btrfs
libcrc32c              16384  1 btrfs
dm_mirror              24576  0
dm_region_hash         20480  1 dm_mirror
dm_log                 20480  2 dm_mirror,dm_region_hash
i915                 1531904  5
i2c_algo_bit           16384  1 i915
drm_kms_helper        159744  1 i915
syscopyarea            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
sysfillrect            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
sysimgblt              16384  1 drm_kms_helper
fb_sys_fops            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
8139too                40960  0
firewire_ohci          36864  0
psmouse               139264  0
drm                   393216  8 i915,drm_kms_helper
8139cp                 32768  0
firewire_core          57344  1 firewire_ohci
mii                    16384  2 8139cp,8139too
pata_acpi              16384  0
crc_itu_t              16384  1 firewire_core
video                  49152  1 i915

Answer 1

I had exactly the same problem. I bought an "itsy bitsy" USB wireless adapter, installed the driver and still in the Networkmanager all Wireless interfaces were "deactivated".

So I took out my original Medion Recovery CD, installed Windows XP, installed EZ Button. Unfortunately the wireless Button still did nothing. But after starting the "Wireless.exe" program in the EZ Button program folder the LED for Wifi was finally on.

After reboot it was still on.

Then I checked in the BIOS if the Wifi option was still configured as "Last State" and installed Xubuntu again.

And then I could use both wifi adapters, the built in Intel PRO/Wireless Lan 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter and my new Wifi stick.

Please keep in mind that the built in Wifi adapter only supports WEP. So I can't use it in my environment.