Wireless on Dell Latitude D630

[Polytropon]

On Mon, 31 Jul 2017 11:16:41 -0500 (CDT), Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> 
> On Mon, July 31, 2017 10:44 am, Duane Whitty wrote:
> >
> > On 17-07-31 12:40 PM, Polytropon wrote:
> >> On Mon, 31 Jul 2017 12:19:27 -0300, Duane Whitty wrote:
> >>> Polytropon, in an earlier thread on this list (FreeBSD 11.1, Xfce, and
> >>> laptop screen and external monitor resolution) you mentioned you were
> >>> using a Dell Latitude D630.  Do you have the wireless working under
> >>> FreeBSD on that machine?  I am writing this email from D630.
> >>
> >> Yes, it works very nicely, even though I do not regularly use it
> >> due to a "fixed installation" of that particular machine, even
> >> with a docking station. :-)
> >>
> >
> > That's awesome.  Thanks for your quick reply.
> 
> Incidentally, Dell is known for changing chipsets almost on daily basis.
> With the same laptop model you may have multiple choices of wileress
> adapter. Intel one may cost a few dollars more (but you know what you
> get). "Dell wireless card" may mean any chipset Dell can get their hands
> on at lowerst cost to them, and the "re-brand" it as Dell; if you are
> lucky (from the point of view of FreeBSD compatibility), you may get
> Atheros, if you are not, you may get crap like Broadcom BCM 43xx (the last
> is proprietary with very little of info about internals disclosed, but the
> worst is: it has 64 bit bus front end, but is 32 bit internally... mess in
> other words).

In this particular machine, those two networking interfaces
are being used:

wpi0 at pci0:12:0:0:       class=0x028000 card=0x10218086 chip=0x42228086 rev=0x02
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection'
    class      = network

bge0 at pci0:9:0:0:        class=0x020000 card=0x01fe1028 chip=0x167314e4 rev=0x02
    vendor     = 'Broadcom Limited'
    device     = 'NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet

The Intel graphics is also working very good - performant even
for 3D stuff, tested with OpenArena. ;-)



> So, good luck. If worst comes to worst, you can get different WiFi card on
> e-bay, make/model that is known to work under FreeBSD. The good news about
> Dell is, they do not make in BIOS list of "approved" adapters, as opposed
> to nasty guys like Compaq, I'm not sure is after HP bought them out they
> still do so.

And it's very easy to access the expansion bay in which the WLAN
module is located (and next to it, a GSM module can be added).
Take screws from the back, turn around, three screws from the
keyboard, lift it - and in the lower left you can find those
components. The HF microconnectors lead to the back of the system
and from there inside the screen.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...