Wireless is disabled by hardware switch

Network manager shows the message "wireless is disabled by hardware switch" while three is no switch on the laptop to disable wireless.

below is the lshw output which might help to get to the solution

  $ sudo lshw -C network
  ...
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Centrino Advanced-N 6200
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0a:00.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 35
       serial: 58:94:6b:14:25:c8
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn driverversion=2.6.38-8-generic firmware=9.221.4.1 build 25532 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
       resources: irq:41 memory:ead00000-ead01fff

Solution 1:

That model does have a wireless on/off switch just under the PC card slot, but I'm sure you know that already.

Solution 2:

May be there is a Fn + something that works as a hardware switch.

Solution 3:

On my Lenovo V570, I had to first run sudo rfkill unblock all and then blacklist a buggy module.

After the sudo rfkill unblock all, run sudo rfkill list to see what is still blocking wireless.

For example,

3: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

Find that corresponding module and remove it and blacklist it,

Example:

sudo rmmod acer_wmi

and add to a blacklist under /etc/modprobe.d/[filename].conf.

(Relevant bug report)

Solution 4:

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, but uninstalled windows). rfkill showed 0: phy0: Wireless Lan as Hard Blocked.

Solution 5:

On my Lenovo E530, the wireless didnt work, and rfkill showed it as blocked by hardware. It turned out the wireless LAN radio was turned off in the BIOS. Turning it on solved the problem.