Re: Disabling wifi to save battery

[Daniel Dalton <d.dalton@iinet.net.au>]

On Sun, Oct 09, 2011 at 06:14:05AM +0100, Raf Czlonka wrote:
> > I was planning to disable wifi, when it wasn't required. On my old
> > laptop I could use the rfkill package like so:
> > rfkill block wifi 
> 
> What does "rfkill list" say?

daniel@debian-laptop:/tmp$ cd
daniel@debian-laptop:~$ sudo rfkill list
0: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
2: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no

Interestingly when I bring down eth1 (the wifi interface), and rfkill
block wifi, it says: 
daniel@debian-laptop:~$ sudo rfkill list
1: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no

So maybe it is actually working, but what makes me worried is that I can
do ifup eth1 and the interface comes up with no problems... On my old
laptop this was not the case and when blocked, all sorts of nasty error
messages would be present. 

BTW, the wifi according to rfkill list is still soft block again once I
bring up the interface eth1, remembering that I blocked wifi just before
with rfkill block wifi, (I have not ran an rfkill unblock wifi) command
yet. So ultimately the wifi is working normally even though rfkill says
it's "soft blocked"...

> Yes, until you remove the module, the device is still in use.
> What model wifi card is it and what module does it use?

So could I just unload the module to save power?

Module: wl

09:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n
Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)

> What does "modinfo 'modulename'" say?

filename:       /lib/modules/3.0.0-1-686-pae/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/wl.ko
license:        MIXED/Proprietary
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00000576sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d0000435Asv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004359sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004358sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004727sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004357sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d0000A99Dsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004353sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d0000432Dsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d0000432Csv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d0000432Bsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d0000432Asv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004329sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004328sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004315sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004313sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004312sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000014E4d00004311sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
depends:        lib80211
vermagic:       3.0.0-1-686-pae SMP mod_unload modversions 686 
parm:           oneonly:int
parm:           piomode:int
parm:           instance_base:int
parm:           nompc:int
parm:           name:string
> 
> Regards,

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Dan