Possible workaround for problems with mini-PCI cards

Many laptops which have mini-pci wireless cards provide a means to switch the radio of the card on and off. Many mini-pci cards respond to a signal on “Pin 13” which controls this function.

If your radio is stuck ‘off’, you will be able to load the madwifi driver correctly, but it won’t find any access points or peers when making scans.

Firstly check the laptop bios settings to ensure that there isn’t a “Disable Radio” or “Disable mini-pci” option selected.

Unfortunatly for us linux users, some laptops operate this mechanism purely in software drivers, requiring either an equivalant linux driver (see http://rfswitch.sourceforge.net/), or to use the NDIS-Wrapper drivers. In some cases, simply getting “ACPI” working may be enough to make appropriate hot-keys turn the radio on / off.

For laptops which don’t have an appropriate driver, you can also control the RF kill feature (on Atheros cards) with a module option:

modprobe ath_pci rfkill=0

This way your wireless card should ignore the state of pin 13.

Masking Pin 13

If this does not work for you, you could try masking off pin 13; sellotape is ideal for this. To find pin 13, hold the card so that the pins, (contacts) are facing you and the key (a little cut in the card) in on the left. Pins are counted up-to-down and left-to-right:

1  key  3  5  7  9 11 13 15 ...
2  key  4  6  8 10 12 14 16 ...

Pin 13 will be thus the seventh pin from the left edge or the sixths pin from the key on the upper side of the card. This picture shows the correct pin to cover, but incorrectly calls is pin 7: http://www.minipci.biz/pin7.jpg

Once you have found pin 13, mask it with a piece of tape, reinstall the card and test.`

Users' Laptops confirmed as needing workarounds

Fujitsu S2020

  • Sellotape over pin 13 causes radio to work. - Switch on back had no effect.
  • Another user from Malaysia - Yup, follow the steps above covering dat Pin 7(if u see it from only one side). My Askey branded mini pci that uses Atheros AR5005 chipset works after doing that. However, take note that the mini pci wifi card sucks up battery power as it has been permanently enabled.
  • (Note from another user: Strange. My Fujitsu S2020 works fine without any tricks like this. Just make sure that the hardware radio on/off switch on the back of the notebook is set to the “on” position… This is with a “Garlic” model S2020, I guess others might be different but I thought that the others had Broadcomm wireless cards.)

Toshiba Satellite 1905-S303

  • with an Askey/Toshiba AR5212 mini-pci card. The radio on/off switch has no effect.

Toshiba Satellite 2430-S101

  • with an Intel Pro/Wireless 2200 b/g mini-pci card. The radio on/off switch has no effect.

Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301

  • with an Askey/Toshiba AR5001X and Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 mini-pci card.

Toshiba Tecra 9100

  • with an Agere Systems MPC13A-20/R; the radio on/off switch has no effect.

Routerboard18 PCI-2-8xMiniPCI

  • The rfkill option works for the routerboard18 - without it only the cards will be detected but no wave will come out. Steffen D.

Fujitsu Siemens Amilo L1310G with Atheros AR5005G 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

  • The rfkill option worked just fine. The enable/disable button works only in windows with the appropriate software.
  • Taping pin 13 works great also. Also worth mentioning that since this is a software switch there are no drivers for Vista yet. So if you want to use your wireless under Vista on this laptop you'll have to tape the pin. After that it works great.

Fujistsu Siemens Amilo Li1718 with Atheros AR242x 802.11abg PCI-e (rev 01)

The rfkill option did NOT work
Masking pin13 did NOT work since its a mini pci-e card, and thus its layout is incoherent to above one.
The wlan switch is a SOFT switch, therefor it cannot be enabled with above methods, however there is a way.....
Download the Acer Hot Key driver , and force a particulair model, this will enable the switch on the laptop

HOWTO : http://www.knights-of-camelot.nl/?page_id=12

Toshiba Satellite P25-507 with AR5211 802.11ab NIC (rev 01)

* Needs kernel parameter 'pci=assign-busses' at boot time in order to see miniPCI behind a 'transparent PCI bridge' * Put a line 'options ath-pci rfkill=0' in /etc/modprobe.d/madwifi * Actual Atheros chipset seems to be AR5001X+, which has AR5211 as one of three chips. * Tested on Debian Sarge with custom kernel 2.6.19.1

Toshiba Satellite 1130 with Broadcom 802.11b NIC

  • Pin 13 trick did the job. Now I can finally throw away the POS usb wireless I was using.

ACER TravelMate 8006LMi

rfkill just did the job. Tested on Ubuntu 6.10. by Herakles

Toshiba Satellite Pro A30

The sellotape over pin 13 trick worked for my Intel Pro/Wireless 2100bg card but unfortunately the range is greatly reduced for some reason. This card works fine with full range capabibities in my newer laptop! - gktechnology

Toshiba Tecra S1

The tape on pin 13 trick worked for me, upgrading from 2100B to a 2915ABG. Before the tape, I could install the drivers but windows config would not pick up any networks. After the tape, it picks up the network, with slightly better reception than the USB stick I was using. The hardware switch does not work.

ACER Aspire 5050

I used the option rfkill=0 and the card got working.

Sony Vaio PCG-NVR23

The tape on pin 13 got my Broadcom 802.11g mini pci nic to work. TY!

Toshiba Satellite 1130

The sellotape over pin 13 trick worked for me with an Atheros AR5005G 108M G+ mini PCI WIFI card (from ebay) in the Tosh. The switch on the side of the 1130 looks like to does nothing. AGT

Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A1650G with Atheros AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)

kernel: 2.6.25-4.slh.3-sidux-686 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 23 21:58:49 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
wlan works:

modprobe ath_pci rfkill=0

wlan not working:

modprobe ath_pci

pin 13 not checked

Fujitsu Siemens A16550G with Gadged Computer Atheros Mini-PCI 802.11 b/g WLAN

SuSE 10.3 2.6.22.17-0.1-default kernel modprobe ath_pci rfkill=0 works just fine

Sony VAIO PCG-K64

I added an Intel pro wireless 2100 mini PCI card into Sony VAIO PCG-K64 which was never intended to have wireless and therefore had no hardware radio switch. The workaround of taping pin 13 worked like a charm. I have also discovered that the Intel ProSet? software application (from Intel website) gives the option to switch the radio signal on and off when required so it doesn't chew the battery when wireless is not required. Just have to disable Windows from controlling the wireless device. Thanks madwifi.org I really appreciate your help. Cheers.

Toshiba Satellite 1135-S1554

Using an Atheros AR5005GS card. I covered pin 13 and it worked. I read somewhere else that you're supposed to cover pin 11, too, but that does NOT work.