Wireless is disabled by hardware switch on Dell Inspiron 1750

I have a problem where Ubuntu (12.04) says there is a wireless network card, but it is disabled by a hardware switch. How do I turn it on?

I checked the BIOS, and the wireless card is enabled there.

Fn + F2 was also no success.

The results of rfkill list:

0: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: yes
1: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: yes
        Hard blocked: yes

sudo rfkill unblock wifi did nothing to the Wireless Status.

Solution 1:

I found out by trial and error that the wifi hardware switch on my Dell XPS 17 L702X is not Fn-F2, as implied by the keyboard icon (and works in Windows), but actually Fn-Alt-F2 in Ubuntu. It might work for your Dell too.

Solution 2:

Try shutting down (if not already off), disconnecting the power, remove battery (if it is a laptop), press power a few times to release stored energy, reinsert battery (if it is a laptop), reconnect AC power. Turn on computer. Worked for me.

After trying multiple fixes I found on the internet I remembered reading this somewhere. My hardware was blocked via a hardware switch (Fn + F8) which doesn't work in Ubuntu (works with Windows).

rfkill showed 0: phy0: Wireless Lan as Hard Blocked.

Solution 3:

Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command below.

sudo rfkill unblock all 

It works for me. I have a Sony Vaio VPCEG.

Solution 4:

This solution worked for me:

sudo modprobe -r dell_laptop

Once I entered that, my physical switch could turn on/off the wireless.

(reference)

Solution 5:

dell inspirion...remove and replace battery...then default the bios..but then dont touch the wireless tab or youll have to do it all over again. this worked for me