I was helping my friend install Mint on his laptop, it all went well and the installation finished, but the driver for the wi-fi module wouldn’t turn on properly, or something. I assumed this was due to secure boot messing with the drivers, so I tried to disable it in the BIOS (it’s an older laptop, no UEFI). But I have spent the last 3 hours trying and failing to open BIOS, and even GRUB. Nothing I try seems to work.
I tried all the function keys, as well as delete, escape, and enter, and the only thing I found is that F12 opens a boot options menu.
I tried holding and mashing shift throughout the boot procedure to get to GRUB.
I tried using the novo button (it’s a Lenovo laptop) which did open a new menu allowing me to select a “BIOS options” button, but it just rebooted after showing me a few rolling lines of text.
I tried plugging in the installation media I used before, which does take me to it’s GRUB, but choosing the UEFI options option there just causes a reboot.
I tried disconnecting the battery and the CMOS battery and waiting for 30 seconds in hopes of disabling fast boot, which didn’t work.
I edited GRUB config files to change the timeout to 10 and the type away from hidden, which didn’t do anything.
I disconnected the disk in hopes of it defaulting to the BIOS, which works for some laptops.
No option worked. I just cannot access BIOS or GRUB. I really don’t know where to go next, and could use some help.
If you haven’t solved this yet I would try using the novo button again with your camera ready to get the text and see if it’s useful. Beyond that, I’m not sure how to get into the bios. Assuming it still boots and doesn’t have a soldered wifi card you could always get an AX210 for fairly cheap off of ebay. Should have good linux support.
Edit: Nvm the card suggestion, I see your comment on that.
Pretty sure secure boot is a UEFI feature so if the board only supports BIOS then there is no secure boot anyway.
I was about to suggest disconnecting the disk until I read that you already tried that. What came up when you removed the disk? The fact that it doesn’t go straight to
a boot device selection screen orthe BIOS is very curious.It just goes to the boot selector.
Does the laptop have any Fn key perhaps? In case all your F keys are set to media keys.
It does, and I tried it.
I had the exact same problem with a Lenovo laptop when trying to get Mint on to it for my partner. Unfortunately I do not remember how the hell I managed it because I had the same issue as non of the keys would get me where I needed to go. I know I held the key before turning on the computer though, and I am pretty sure it was the esc key.
Sorry I couldn’t be more help. But lenovo laptops can eat all the dicks. haha
What’s the model of the machine, or the the WiFi module?
It’s a Lenovo 80JW, with a Broadcom BCM43162, from what I can see.
Broadcom chipsets are notoriously lacking in any sort of open driver operation or collaboration. I’d honestly just replace it with a $25 Intel chipset, but if you want to fight through it: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx
You’ll notice that your specific chipset isn’t mentioned, but it might be different now, so I’d double check.
Edit: after digging some more, there is zero support for this chipset anywhere except Windows, and it’s a problematic chipset anyway. I’d just get an Intel (fully open drivers) and swap it.
I went an changed to an Intel AX200 I had lying around, though now I have problems with the wireless availability dipping in and out of service. Like the card is being constantly power cycled.
Check the section here that details disabling power management for the WiFi device: https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/speed-mint.html?m=1#ID10
You also need to make sure you disable the internal card as well.
Does that mean that even with secure boot turned off I would have no more luck?
Also, USB dongles should work though, right?
Secure Boot has nothing to do with, Broadcom keeps their drivers completely closed, and just doesn’t support this chipset anywhere except Windows.
USB dongles would work fine, but probably cost more than an internal module. It sounded from your post like you’re fine with opening the machine and navigating the internals, so swapping the WiFi module would only take 5m.
Just stay away from Broadcom in general. Intel has the best performing WiFi chipsets at current, but Atheros and Realtek work just fine as well.
I agree.
If you’re going with USB maybe check this list (it’s from 2021, which should serve very well) https://www.fosslinux.com/46681/linux-compatible-wireless-network-adapters.htmOtherwise agree, but I did run into pain with Realtek on my Thinkpad - the module would sometimes crash and disconnect entirely (on a PCI-e level) from the system.
I did manage to find a fix, but I would not recommend Realtek to someone.
That’s less likely to be the chipset, and more likely to be crap hardware. The chipset wouldn’t cause PCIe disconnect/interrupt issues, but shitty power handling in a laptop would. Can I wager it happened when plugging/unplugging power or ramping up CPU or GPU util? That was a thing on those Lenovo convertibles for years, but they did throw that shoddy consumer hardware into the Thinkpad line which made it go downhill fast.
You’re right that it was power-related - one of the options was an ASPM modification - but the issue seemed to be common to this chipset accross laptop brands.
The fix I used came from this post: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=286109
My machine was a Thinkpad, but this article was also talking about problems on HP, Asus, etcetera. I think the 8852BE might just be cursed
To be fair, I was using an E series Thinkpad, but in my defense, the E series seems to have improved a lot in the past few years - this was luckily the only issue I’ve had. I’ve had much more difficult times with Linux on other laptops. Heck, even my desktop had more setup than this when I was first starting out, though it was because I was using a Broadcom Wi-Fi card, as I also dual-booted with a Hackintosh and macOS only supports Broadcom Wi-Fi chipsets.
usb wifi dongles for $7 is the cheaper solution, not the internal module. I have some and they work fine with linux.
On all the lenovos here hitting enter when the bios displays the Lenovo splash screen gives a menu that allows you to get at the bios or a boot menu.
You have to be a bit careful cos it’s on a countdown, paused and resumed by the enter key… And you have to get it timed right.
Thing is I don’t get any splash screen, at no point did I. I find that strange too. Enter doesn’t change anything either.
That is odd. However iirc it is an option in the bios.
Fwiw telling grub to uefi boot will not work if the boot device doesn’t have uefi support (and trying to boot in bios mode from a uefi disk fails as well… Been there got the T-shirt)
To get the install media to boot you could try removing the laptop storage…
I don’t have any problem getting the installation media to work, changing the boot device is one of the only meta-OS things I can do right now.
Just thinking aloud here…
Can you boot the install media when the laptop storage is installed?
If so, you can use gparted from the install media to clean the storage device and start from scratch. That might help.
You should be able to tell what mode to install the os in from the boot mode of the install media.
On Lenovo it’s usually the delete key, I think. You should check the manual. It should also be an entry in the boot options list.
You might also try a reset, but it would also be helpful if you shared the “few rolling lines of text”.
The delete key didn’t work, but in the end the specific key is redundant since I have access to the Novo button.
I’d love to share the text, but there’s so many of them and they disappear so quick I don’t know how. But I think they’re just printing it loading the OS.
I think on my lenovo it’s either F2 or Del, you have to switch on the laptop and start spamming one of those two immediately
