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    Wireless LED inverted

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by iuliand, Jan 11, 2011.

  1. iuliand

    iuliand Newbie

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    I have an Acer Extensa 5220 on which (coincidentally or not) after a bios update, the wireless status LED has become inverted. When I switch on wifi form dedicated button the LED will switch off and when I switch off wifi the LED will become lit but this behavior appears only with Windows 7 OS.

    The curious thing is that I upgraded (by clean install) to windows 7 one month ago and the wireless LED performed as expected. A few days ago I got the idea to upgrade from bios 1.32 to 1.35. I performed the bios update using winflash32. After required restart the wifi led had become inverted.

    What I did so far:
    - Acer email support was/is useless.
    - I made numerous bios flashes to 1.32, 1.18 and back to 1.35 in windows 7, windows XP and from DOS boot disk without any success in curing this.
    - Reinstalled clean Windows 7 with same inverted result.
    - Updated driver trough windows update but there was no improvement.
    - Got the service manual but I couldn't find any useful information there.
    - I installed windows XP in order to test and there the wireless LED is not inverted!

    I just can't think of anything else to try.

    I don't know if this I a bios issue or driver issue but I tend to think it is driver related after all. Please help me to clarify this. I'm open to any idea.
    I so that the bios update also changes the KBC bios version but I don't know if this is of any importance.

    Does anyone know how the LED status is controlled on this notebook with Broadcom wireless module?

    Wireless module is Broadcom BCM94311MCG. I don't have any other windows 7 driver besides those provided by windows update.
     
    iuliand, Jan 11, 2011
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  2. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Have you tried unplugging it and removing the battery for 30 seconds?
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jan 11, 2011
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  3. iuliand

    iuliand Newbie

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    Yes. Unfortunately no luck :(


    Can someone clarify what this phlash16 parameter is doing:
    /NIC Update network controller driver with *.lom files.

    May it be of some use if I try it? Is is safe?
     
    iuliand, Jan 13, 2011
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  4. iuliand

    iuliand Newbie

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    OAU! I solved it! Now the wireless LED is not inverted anymore! :D

    It proven to be a DRIVER issue! Incredible... What a coincidence, Win 7 automatically updated/changed the wlan driver in the same time I updated the bios. I just can't explain how this happened. And I can't explain how was this working in the first place when I installed Win 7, because I didn't installed any specific driver for wireless.

    I found a Vista driver on Acer Europe FTP:

    ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/extensa_5220/vista/Drivers_SP1/
    WLANdriver_Broadcom4311&4312_v4.170.25.19_Vistax64x32_HHWBA07W.zip

    This is the only driver available for broadcom wifi card for Vista! And it is working fine on Windows 7 too. You can not find it anywhere else on acer support site or on windows update.

    I hope this will help others with the same issue under Windows 7.
     
    iuliand, Jan 13, 2011
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