(I posted this on linux.debian.user on 29/02/08 but I had no reply whatsoever. Sorry if somebody hits it twice)
Basically, I can't use my wireless card anymore, an Intel Pro-wireless 2200BG. The machine is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M1425 laptop. OS is Debian unstable. All of a sudden, iwconfig and dmesg report that the kill switch is on (meaning, intuitively enough, that the card is off...), which is confirmed by
Any attempt to change that value to zero is fruitless. Manually switching on and off the wireless switch does nothing. Only sometimes the wireless led stays on for some 20 seconds and then dies again. Even during those 20-30 seconds the light is on, iwconfig reports kill switch as on (meaning card off...). The only thing that makes me doubt about it being a hardware problem is that, when somehow said led is on, it consistently turns itself off as soon as I modprobe the module for the card.
Apart from a hibernate upgrade some two days ago (which I have already downgraded just in case) I can't see anything relevant I might've installed this recently.
I get the same with several kernels and even with a live CD. Nothing I found in google solve/apply to my case. I don't know what to do now to check where the problem lies...Possibly unrelated (but who knows?) the other day the date and time as reported by the system was something like 2026, which makes me suspect of a nearly exhausted CMOS battery. Any suggestions/experiments I could do to find out whether the hardware is dead would be very welcome, even if it involves opening the beast up.