Wireless in 13.10 and similar doesn't work

Question

Just installed Ubuntu 13.10, I tried to connect wireless but It didn't detect any network. This is what happens when I check my wireless:

:~$ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes
1: asus-wlan: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

I've tried with the command:

-rfkill unblock 0

but I guess it's only for soft blocks, because it doeswn't work after rebooting.

Information about network card and kernel:

:~$ sudo lshw -c network
[sudo] password for : 
  *-network DESACTIVADO   
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter
       vendore: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       series: 24:0a:64:14:77:bf
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.11.0-15-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:17 memory:f7900000-f797ffff memory:f7980000-f798ffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0.2
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.2
       logical name: eth0
       version: 0a
       series: ac:22:0b:09:91:b2
       size: 100Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8411-1_0.0.3 06/18/12 ip=192.168.1.106 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
       recursos: irq:45 ioport:d000(size=256) memory:f2104000-f2104fff memory:f2100000-f2103fff

This same problem happened with the latest versions of Linux Mint 15 and 16.

Answer 1

As you stated, it's obviously the hardware switch causing this issue.

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
     Soft blocked: no
     Hard blocked: **yes**

So my advice would be:

• Try pressing Fn + ((i))

  where Fn is the hardware switch key on laptop keyboards
  and ((i)) one of the [F1]-[F12] keys for the wireless device.

• Try disabling your wireless card in your BIOS, reboot your machine and re-enable the device again.

• Finally check if the hard block is gone.