Intel wifi led blinking AGAIN on Ubuntu 12.04

I previously posted about this on previous versions of Ubuntu, but despite updating the instructions for 11.10 the instructions are once again obsolete. It seems Intel changes the name of its wifi kernel module every release…

On my Dell E4300 with “Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100” (as reported by lspci), the module name is now “iwlwifi”. This means the kernel options you add to /etc/modprobe.d should be against this module rather than iwlcore (11.04) or iwlagn (11.10).

So the instructions once again:

$ sudo -i
# echo 'options iwlwifi led_mode=1' >> /etc/modprobe.d/wlan.conf
# modprobe -r iwlwifi && modprobe iwlwifi

Bear in mind that the second line removes the wifi kernel module temporarily which will disconnect your wifi. It should automatically reconnect, if not reboot.

9 thoughts on “Intel wifi led blinking AGAIN on Ubuntu 12.04

  1. Mike

    Thank you
    This seems to have done the trick, and my annoying wifi light is no longer blinking in 12.04 on my HP dm4-2070us (Intel Centrino N-1000 wifi)

    I had to su to root in order to echo the line you recommended into /etc/modprobe.d/wlan.conf (error when attempting via sudo). modprobing iwlwifi also threw some errors, just had to run each part of your second line separately and all was well.

    For anyone scared off by errors similar to mine, here is the path I took to make this work in 12.04. Attempt at your own risk

    $sudo su
    #echo 'options iwlwifi led_mode=1' >> /etc/modprobe.d/wlan.conf
    #exit
    $sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi
    $sudo modprobe iwlwifi

    Reply
  2. Alex Post author

    Thanks Mike. Of course, I should have realised that you can’t sudo the echo command as the output is still in the normal user’s shell. I ran it as root and added sudo when publishing, but should have sanity-checked…

    I’ve updated the post.

    Reply
  3. Mikael Svensson

    This tip did not solve the problem on my HP nc6400. However, “lsmod” showed me that “iwl3945” and “iwl_legacy”, rather than “iwlwifi”, was in use.

    In the end I had to issue these commands to get the flashing LED to stop blinking:

    sudo echo “options iwl_legacy led_mode=1” > /etc/modprobe.d/iwl_legacy.conf

    sudo modprobe -r iwl3945 && sudo modprobe iwl3945

    Reply
    1. flink

      Thank you Alex and Mikael! Your combined efforts cured my Dell D620’s obnoxious blinking :-)

      Reply
  4. wango911

    i wanna say thanks for this simple fix, was pretty annoying for the wifi led being on speed

    Reply

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