Dell inspiron 1545 wired and wireless do not work

When I realized my wireless wasn't working with ubuntu, I plugged my laptop in to try and figure out the problem online - only to find it doesn't work that way, either. The problem isn't my internet/ cords because I'm using both right now via my wireless desktop.

I'm just getting in to ubuntu and would appreciate any assistance. I've looked around but the only similar questions I could find were about the wireless problem - but I have to deal with the wired problem, first.

Let me know what info I need to give.

~$ lspci -knn | grep -i net -A2
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller [11ab:4354] (rev 13)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:02aa] 
    Kernel driver in use: sky2 -- 
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card [1028:000c] 
    Kernel modules: ssb

~$ rfkill list all 
0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes

The output of lsmod: http://pastebin.com/DqNwKcqZ

Solution 1:

Please try downloading the driver for Linux 2.6 here: http://www.marvell.com/support/downloads/driverDownload.do?driverId=153&action=1 Run install.sh in a terminal, that should fix the problem, it did for the guy in my source. Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1575197 Hope that helps!

Solution 2:

The Inspiron 1545 has been certified with Ubuntu since 10.10, with the exact components you describe, so it should work and the hardware should be compatible.

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/200912-4896

To get the wireless card to work you may need to install additional drivers; for this you'd need the wired network to be working.

One other strange thing is your rfkill output; the hardware should not appear as "hard-blocked", this indicates the wireless switch is in the "disabled" position. Double-check that it's on "enabled". Also, try rmmod dell-laptop, and see if the rfkill status changes. If so, please let me know, as this shouldn't happen on this laptop model.

As for the wired network, that should work out of the box and with no problems. To diagnose this, I suggest you unplug the cable, restart the system, and run tail -f /var/log/syslog on a terminal. Then plug in the cable and look at the log output, to see exactly what happens when you connect this. If you have trouble interpreting the output, you could also pastebin the last lines of the system log and we can look at it to see if we can suggest something else.