I have a weird problem which I suspect due to a hardware failure, but I would like to make sure.

On a Panasonic Toughbook CF-T5, running Kubuntu 12.04. Dual boot with WIndows XP but I don't think that is the issue, I did not boot into windows in a very long time.

The laptop has a phisical switch to turn wifi on/off (and a led that is on/off accordingly).

A couple of months ago, the wifi started disconnecting/reconnecting (and the led going off/on), then
at some point died forever. The led is also off, regardless of the position of the switch.

The "Enable wireless" tickbox in knetworkmanager is greyed out.

What makes the situation even weirder is that if I plug in a second wifi (usb stick),
this also does not work! And it works on other machines.

The only difference is that rfkill list does not show the second wifi (wlan1) to be hardware blocked.

I did spend quite some time looking for similar issues and tried the proposed solution.
I did rfkill unblock all, check the bios settings, the windows partition (XP, which I had not used in a very long time), and even booting from a usb stick, nothing makes the wifi work.

Attaching a bunch of potentially useful command outputs.

$ iwconfig



wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  

      Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm   

      Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

      Power Management:on



wlan0     IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:off/any  

          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   

          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Power Management:on





$ rfkill list



0: phy0: Wireless LAN

    Soft blocked: no

    Hard blocked: yes

1: phy1: Wireless LAN

    Soft blocked: no

    Hard blocked: no



$ lspci -k

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT  Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: i915

    Kernel modules: intelfb, i915

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

    Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)

    Kernel driver in use: pcieport

    Kernel modules: shpchp

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)

    Kernel driver in use: pcieport

    Kernel modules: shpchp

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Device 8338

    Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel modules: leds-ss4200, iTCO_wdt, intel-rng

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel driver in use: ata_piix

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel modules: i2c-i801

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)

    Subsystem: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

    Kernel driver in use: iwl3945

    Kernel modules: iwl3945

04:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel driver in use: 8139too

    Kernel modules: 8139too, 8139cp

04:05.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev 8d)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus

    Kernel modules: yenta_socket

04:05.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 13)

    Subsystem: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop

    Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci

    Kernel modules: sdhci-pci



$ lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by

zd1211rw               57509  0 

bnep                   17830  2 

rfcomm                 38139  0 

bluetooth             158447  10 bnep,rfcomm

parport_pc             32114  0 

ppdev                  12849  0 

binfmt_misc            17292  1 

dm_crypt               22528  0 

snd_hda_codec_idt      60251  1 

snd_hda_intel          32719  3 

snd_hda_codec         109562  2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel

snd_hwdep              13276  1 snd_hda_codec

snd_pcm                80916  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec

snd_seq_midi           13132  0 

snd_rawmidi            25424  1 snd_seq_midi

snd_seq_midi_event     14475  1 snd_seq_midi

snd_seq                51592  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event

snd_timer              28931  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq

snd_seq_device         14172  3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq

arc4                   12473  4 

snd                    62250  15 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device

pcmcia                 39826  0 

joydev                 17393  0 

iwl3945                73145  0 

iwl_legacy             71334  1 iwl3945

mac80211              436493  3 zd1211rw,iwl3945,iwl_legacy    

tpm_infineon           13200  0 

yenta_socket           27428  0 

pcmcia_rsrc            18367  1 yenta_socket

cfg80211              178877  4 zd1211rw,iwl3945,iwl_legacy,mac80211

pcmcia_core            21511  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,pcmcia_rsrc

soundcore              14635  1 snd

psmouse                97218  0 

serio_raw              13027  0 

snd_page_alloc         14115  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

tpm_tis                18389  0 

panasonic_laptop       13194  0 

mac_hid                13077  0 

sparse_keymap          13658  1 panasonic_laptop

lp                     17455  0 

parport                40930  3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp

i915                  428458  2 

8139too                23283  0 

drm_kms_helper         45466  1 i915

drm                   197641  3 i915,drm_kms_helper

8139cp                 26688  0 

sdhci_pci              18324  0 

sdhci                  28241  1 sdhci_pci

usbhid                 41937  0 

hid                    81731  1 usbhid

i2c_algo_bit           13199  1 i915

video                  19115  1 i915



$ sudo lshw -class network

 *-network DISABLED

   description: Wireless interface

   product: PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection

   vendor: Intel Corporation

   physical id: 0

   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0

   logical name: wlan0

   version: 02

   serial: 00:19:d2:0a:43:4b

   width: 32 bits

   clock: 33MHz

   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless

   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwl3945 driverversion=3.2.0-72-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abg

   resources: irq:42 memory:d0000000-d0000fff

 *-network

   description: Ethernet interface

   product: RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+

   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.

   physical id: 1

   bus info: pci@0000:04:01.0

   logical name: eth0

   version: 10

   serial: 00:0b:97:ba:fe:86

   size: 100Mbit/s

   capacity: 100Mbit/s

   width: 32 bits

   clock: 33MHz

   capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation

   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.28 duplex=full ip=192.168.1.5 latency=32 link=yes maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s

   resources: irq:19 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:d0100000-d01000ff

 *-network DISABLED

   description: Wireless interface

   physical id: 2

   bus info: usb@1:5

   logical name: wlan1

   serial: 00:1a:ff:01:dc:b9

   capabilities: ethernet physical wireless

   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=zd1211rw driverversion=3.2.0-72-generic firmware=N/A link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg