disable WiFi?

[derek]

My fit-PC2i has WiFi, which is fine. I may use it one day. For now though I don't need it and so, in the spirit of being "fit" i.e. minimising power use, and for other reasons, can I disable it?

The requirements are though that any change: must be reversible, must not void warranty (in any case, I don't want to open up the box).

Can the WiFi be disabled in BIOS? If not, in Linux?

NB: fit-PC2i, not fit-PC. Linux, not Windows.

I tried ifconfig wlan0 down and while that may have stopped the WiFi chatting every 5 seconds, it caused (?) the wpa_supplicant process to complain every minute, which was somewhat counterproductive. So I'm thinking that disabling the WiFi at a lower level may work better.

Related question --- is there any documentation on what is connected to what internally in the fit-PC2i?

For example, I see that the BIOS can disable the second PCIe but without documentation, what devices will that disable?

[irads]

fit-PC2i wifi is USB. It cannot be disabled from BIOS.

[Denis]

I advice you just to disable wifi kernel module in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Code: Select all

blacklist rt2870sta

[derek]

Worked a treat, thanks.

(Need to reboot after adding that line?)

--

Also gets rid of annoying log messages similar to the following every minute.

kernel: [97606.691038] ===>rt_ioctl_giwscan. 1(1) BSS returned, data->length = 132

(These messages appear to pertain to scanning for access points.)