No WiFi Adapter Found Broadcom Ubuntu [Solved ]

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How to Solve No WiFi Adapter Found?

In this article I will share a tutorial on how to fix the No WiFi Adapter Found error on Broadcom Ubuntu. I got this error from an Acer laptop with Broadcom Hardware wifi, so in the wifi menu an error appears as shown in the picture:

Initially, my laptop worked fine, wifi was able to connect and browsing could run smoothly.

But suddenly the wifi doesn’t connect, I open the wifi menu and it appears “No Wi-Fi Adapter Found”. Hence, I fixed it and it worked. WiFi reconnected.

No Wi-Fi Adapter Found Broadcom Ubuntu [Solved ]

Check Adapter

How to Solve No Wi-Fi Adapter Found? The first step to fix it is to check the hardware used by the laptop via the terminal with the command: 

sudo lshw -C network

If it looks like the one below, it’s probably true that you are using broadcom as your laptop’s wifi hardware. 

aceracer: $ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for acer: 
   *-network
        description: Ethernet interface product: NetLink
        BCM57780 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe 
        vendor: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries 
        physical id: 0 
        bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 
        logical name: enp1so 
        version: 01 
        serial: 60:eb:69:d0:16:6f 
        capacity: 1Gbit/s 
        width: 64 bits 
        clock: 33MHz
        capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
        configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=5.1 1.0-27-generic firmware=sb latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
        resources: irg:28 memory:91400000-9140ffff

Delete Driver

after confirming that the laptop uses drivers from broadcom, the next step is to delete/uninstall the drivers. Let’s remove the previously installed broadcom driver. 

sudo apt remove broadcom-sta-dkms bcmwl-kernel-source

The delete process will run like this: 

acerdacer: $ sudo apt remove broadcom-sta-dkms bcmwz-kernel-source 
Reading package lists... Done 
Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 
Package 'broadcom-sta-dkms' is not installed, so not removed The following packages will be REMOVED:
   bcmwl-kernel-source 
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 247 not upgraded. 
After this operation, 8.079 KB disk space will be freed. 
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y 
(Reading database ... 243065 files and directories currently installed.), 
Removing bcmwl-kernel-source (6.30.223.271+bdcom-Oubuntu7-20.04.3) ... 
Removing all DKMS Modules 
Done. 
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) 
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.136Ubuntuó.6) ... 
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-27-generic
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/skl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/bxt_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/kbl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/1915/glk_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/kbl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/kbl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/cml_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/icl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/ehl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/ehl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/tgl_huc_7.5.0.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/tgl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/tgl_huc_7.5.0.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/tgl_guc_49.0.1.bin for module i915 
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/dg1_dmc_ver2_02.bin for module i915 
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/sdal 
I: (UUID=34597f0b-f4d2-419b-b30f-040433789910) 
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.

Download File

After the driver is successfully uninstalled, Now you download two things b43-fwcutter and broadcom-wl-5. For b43-fwcutter there are two versions, 32-bit and 64-bit. Please download according to your laptop or computer:

Download b43-fwcutter_019-7_i386.deb (32-bit)

Download b43-fwcutter_019-7_amd64.deb (64-bit)

Download broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

Install File

After the download is complete, you can install the two files using the following command: 

sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter_015-9_amd64.deb

Now b43-fwcutter has been installed. The next step is to extract the broadcom-wl file using the following command: 

tar xfvj broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2

After the extract is complete, the next step is to install broadcom-wl using the following command: 

sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o

Reboot

Then Reboot / Restart your laptop. Now you can use your laptop’s wifi.

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