Question

2

Disabled WiFi but it keeps re-enabling itself; want it to stay disabled

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 1787 / 3 Years ago, sat, october 9, 2021, 5:00:43

I have an Alienware X51 desktop with a wireless card, I have it connected via ethernet and want to permanently disable WiFi from ever using itself.

When running Windows, I go to device manager and rightclick-disable the Wireless card and that takes care of my problem. Is there a similar method using Ubuntu 14.04?

For now, I click on the network icon in the system tray and uncheck 'Enable wifi' but it seems to turn itself back on as I use my computer, I think I have the incident isolated to something with Steam. It seems like after I start the Steam client it always is re-enabled.

Hopeful answer: Just disable/remove/block wireless card from ever working.

EDIT: Ok, it is official, the game client Steam is enabling WiFi every single time I launch it, even after going to Settings>Network>Wireless>Disable & Airplane mode on.
Any idea why the client is activating WiFi when I have a perfectly good ethernet connection?

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

sharall

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 407

Total Questions: 127

Total Answers: 121

Location: Saint Helena

Member since Fri, Mar 26, 2021

3 Years ago

answered 3 Years ago clegian · Accepted Answer

If you wish to permanently disable the wireless, blacklist its driver. Find the driver with:

sudo lshw -C network

Under the wireless device, the driver will be shown. As an example:

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: Centrino Advanced-N 6200
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
logical name: wlan0
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=3.13.0-etc.

In this case, we'd blacklist iwlwifi. From the terminal:

sudo -i

echo "blacklist iwlwifi"  >>  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

modprobe -r iwlwifi

exit

There are a couple of drivers that don't report exactly in lshw. If the driver shows as wl0, you need to blacklist wl. If it shows as b43-pci-bridge, you need to blacklist b43. If in doubt, post your result and we'll be happy to help.

You should be all set.