WIFI is Diasbled by Hardware switch in Ubuntu 14.04 32 bit on HP-430 laptop

Question

Please help in resolving wifi connection issue.

WIFI is Diasbled by Hardware switch in Ubuntu 14.04 32 bit on HP-430 laptop

rfkill list all result is as follows,

0: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes
2: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes
3: hp-bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: yes

Answer 1

I met the same situation stated above 30 minutes ago, but in reading answers on forums, I got the answer by chance.

For this HP laptop, the original Fn + F1-F12 has been changed under Ubuntu to FN + Ctrl + F1-F12... The kids should have touched the FN + Ctrl + F11 during their gaming...

I hope this may help some people in the similar situations. And I'll be glad to hear how to change these combinations under Ubuntu or Lubuntu, or how to find complete documentation on this issue concerning different producers.

Answer 2

I seemed to have "fixed" this, more by luck than design. I tried suggestions such as rfkill unblock all with no success. Also every type of possible key combination and the wireless (F12) key, also no luck. The comment above saying that FN is now FN + Ctrl didn't help.

I shutdown and then entered BIOS and chose "Reset to default" (0r something similar). Now wireless works, the light on the F12 key is now blue and not orange.

I'm only calling this a partial fix as I can now turn on and off wifi using the "Enable Wifi" option from the pulldown menu at the top right, but the button still doesn't do anything. When I switch wifi off using the pulldown, button turns orange, turns blue again when I turn on.

Hope this helps and works for other HP 431 owners out there.

JB

Answer 3

Resetting the bios to default on my HP Pavilion worked. I installed Fedora and both my Panda stick and internal Realtek card were recognized.

Answer 4

I am using HP Pavilion 15-r007tx. I am also having the same problem but I have a solution. Enable by hardware switch means you have to enable your wifi by hardware while booting. While booting, when you first select *Ubuntu from the first menu, it is followed by a black screen which then eventually shows the login page. We have to enable wifi immediately when the black screen appears. Press fn + f12 key while in that black screen time interval. You will see something like ^[[12]~ appear on your screen. This means you have enabled your wifi successfully. Now just let the login page appear and you will have your wifi working properly from now on.

If you shut down your system properly then you do not have to do this every time you boot your system. Anytime you see this problem just restart and use the above trick.