Bugzilla – Bug 462967
laptop wireless light blinks all the time.
Last modified: 2009-01-24 09:39:32 UTC
I have an HP laptop Model: Pavilion dv5237cl using PROWireless 3945ABG Two minor networking problems have surfaced with 11.1 1) The blue light indicating the wireless network is active blinks all the time. Sometimes it stops for 2-seconds. The blinking is hard on the eyes. The wireless network does function. It is dual booted and does not happen with (YUCK) XP. 2) The signal strength bars only have two bars out of the four even when I am right next to the wireless router. It doesn't seem to be an accurate indicator. XP does show the signal as high.
I have found that if I turn off within YaST Network Manager and select the Traditional Method with "ifup" that I can toggle the wireless switch at the top of my keyboard ok. This problem seems to only be with the "Network Manager" default setting. In addition, if I am using Network Manager I have found two ways to get the wireless back working. One is to boot into Microsoft and press the button. The other way is to go into the BIOS settings and turn off the wireless card and then turn it back on saving the settings. Again this is with an iwl3945 chipset. Ubuntu has the same problem with the switch for the light and the blinking light. The blinking light is very very disturbing. Please fix the blinking light and the wireless switch issue within Network Manager.
I can confirm that "das blinken light" happens constantly on my Dell Latitude D620. While I am very pleased that the developers took the time to work on the light issue (11.0 had no light at all), I'm thinking I would have preferred no light to this constant "blinky-blinky-blinky" eye-sore. I can also second the "2 bars" problem. I have excellent signal from my Linksys N610 router (I am also sitting practically on top of it) and yet I get only 2 bars.
Changing priority and severity. Please refer to http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs/Definitions#Bug_Priorities
This is not a kernel issue, a networkmanager one, reassigning...
Looks like another (or the same) iwl3945 killswitch issue to me.
(In reply to comment #2) > I'm thinking I would have preferred no > light to this constant "blinky-blinky-blinky" eye-sore. The LED blinks when traffic goes through the wireless card. However you can configure the LED behavior in /sys/class/net/wlanX/device/leds. For example something like echo none > /sys/class/net/wlanX/device/leds/*TX/trigger echo none > /sys/class/net/wlanX/device/leds/*RX/trigger echo none > /sys/class/net/wlanX/device/leds/*assoc/trigger should deactivate the blinking while traffic is received or transmitted. Just play with the LED triggers to get the desired behavior. So, the LED part is no bug. (In reply to comment #1) > In addition, if I am using Network Manager I have found two ways to get the > wireless back working. One is to boot into Microsoft and press the button. > The other way is to go into the BIOS settings and turn off the wireless card > and then turn it back on saving the settings. Again this is with an iwl3945 > chipset. This behavior is already fixed in the current kernel git and should appear soon as update for 11.1. Hence, I'd suggest to close this report as INVALID and open a new one for the last remaining issue: only two signal strength bars are shown ...
Robert, please open a new bug report for the "only two signal strength bars are shown ..." bug. Thanks. Closing as INVALID due to the reasons stated in comment #6.
Technique mentioned above works for me. Agreed that is can be closed as invalid. I will be opening up a new b/r to indicate that an USER interface to control this needs to be designed. I guess that would be an enhancement/feature request.
(In reply to comment #8) > I will be opening up a new b/r to indicate that an USER interface to control > this needs to be designed. I guess that would be an enhancement/feature > request. Right. But please file the feature request at features.opensuse.org instead of bugzilla. Thanks.