#98 Wireless radios disabled on T400s cold boot; reboot enables them

On a cold boot of my T400s, the wireless radios are always disabled. The green wireless radio lights at the bottom of the screen bezel do not turn on. ifconfig -a shows the Atheros AR9285, but it is disabled and doesn't show up when running plain ifconfig. lspci lists the device; so the system knows it's there. The network indicator applet shows the 'Enable Wi-Fi' check box as unchecked; but when you click on it to enable it, the box gets checked but the device still appears disabled. No wireless networks are ever listed let alone connected to. Performing a warm reboot lights the green wireless lights at the bottom of the screen bezel and the wireless adapter now functions properly again.

Flash chip: Winbond W25Q128 16mb OS: Trisquel Affected libreboot versions: 2021-11-22 & 2021-05-22 Tested and affected libreboot types: grub vesafb & grub txtmode Wireless Adapter: Atheros AR9285 (non-free, sadly.)

Update: This also affects hibernation. If I don't tell grub to reboot one time before waking from hibernation, wireless networking is disabled. I just replaced the AR9285 with a newer AR5BHB116 and no change in behavior.

Just booted a live USB of Linux Mint and the network applet says the wireless is disabled by hardware switch, which is incorrect. Toggling the hardware switch off and on again does nothing.

Update: I just did a fresh install on a different T400s laptop using the same flash chip and the issue is not occurring. I think I may have forgotten to update the firmware to the latest version before replacing the chip on the other machine. Going to get the old flash chip out and solder some pigtails on it for a temporary reattachment to the board so I can update the factory firmware. Will report back and close the issue if this solves it.

install rfkill and enable it in os. or re-flash your firmware.

if this is a firmware issue with the card, then i can close this report. feel free to follow up otherwise.