Wifi activation problem - HP 2000

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| Sadly, on my machine, the lock is handled via a "soft-key", essentially via
| running Windows, and pressing "Fn-F12", which would cause a little LED that
| is presently orange to switch to blue, and allow a different output than
| rfkill is showing:
| 
| root at hpaq:~# rfkill list 1
| 1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
|         Soft blocked: no
|         Hard blocked: yes
| root at hpaq:~# rfkill unblock 1
| root at hpaq:~# rfkill list 1
| 1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
|         Soft blocked: no
|         Hard blocked: yes
| 
| I don't have any Windows install around, so can't reboot there to do a
| switcheroo.

Surely you got Windows and a license with the machine.  If not, that
would be exciting news.

Can you press the Fn-F12 while in the CMOS setup screen?

I wonder how the Fn-F12 code works.

How about straight F12?  Seems odd, but a web page suggested there was
a toggle in the BIOS switching between Fn-F12 and plain F12.  Makes
not sense to me.

At one point in time, I thought these were done by the BIOS in SMM.
So that it should work, even in Linux.  This might have been in APM
days (long ago).  The latest BIOS is F.26 (2013 Mar 8).

Perhaps there are special ACPI calls for the driver to ask the BIOS to
manipulate the hardware.

For some notebook families, this kind of magic is handled by a Linux
package.  For example, there is such a package for thinkpads.  I also
think that such a package existed for Samsungs (and started bricking
recent models.

The user manual for your computer
<http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03482087/c03482087.pdf>
says:

Using the wireless button

    The computer has a wireless button, one or more wireless devices,
    and one or two wireless lights, depending on the model. All of the
    wireless devices on your computer are enabled at the factory, so
    the wireless light is on (white) when you turn on the computer.

    The wireless light indicates the overall power state of your
    wireless devices, not the status of individual devices. If the
    wireless light is white, at least one wireless device is on. If
    the wireless light is amber, all wireless devices are off.

    Because the wireless devices are enabled at the fact ory, you can
    use the wireless button to turn on or turn off the wireless
    devices simultaneously

This suggests that if you manage to turn the thing on, it should stay
on across power downs.

There is an HP Wireless Button Driver for Windows 8 on HP's web site.
<http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=ca&prodNameId=5316884&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=5296210&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4132>

Perhaps you should read this message and maybe the whole thread (but
most is irrelevant).
<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2120660&p=12553212#post12553212>

This might help:
<http://www.descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20402>

Good luck!
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists