# Broadcom BCM43142 wifi issues
**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [September 3, 2024, 8:33am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557 "2024-09-03T08:33:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cederlunddd](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/cederlunddd)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2024, 8:33am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/1 "2024-09-03T08:33:16Z")
Hello,
I’m new to NixOS and while I’ve used other Linux distros from Ubuntu to Arch, I’m having problems getting my BCM43142 wifi card working. The card has worked fine in other distros without any hassle post-install, but NixOS seemingly didn’t install a driver like many others do.
I’ve attempted:
- installing different versions of the seemingly correct driver ( linuxKernel.packages.linux\_6\_6.broadcom\_sta, linuxKernel.packages.linux\_latest\_libre.broadcom\_sta )
- installing broadcom-bt-firmware (didn’t help with wifi nor bluetooth)
- setting boot.kernelModules = [”wl” ”broadcom\_sta”] since I don’t know what I’m doing, and wl (whatever it stands for since it’s very difficult to search online without getting results on Wayland) still doesn’t get found by modprobe.
I’d appreciate any help or directions on what I should be doing instead!
Kernel: 6.6.47
NixOS: 24.05.4396.ae2fc9e0e42c (Uakari)
---
### Author:  [@drupol](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/drupol)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2024, 9:35am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/2 "2024-09-03T09:35:03Z")
Hello,
I recently made modifications (for the greater good) to the `broadcom-sta` driver: [linuxPackages\_latest.broadcom\_sta: add patches by drupol · Pull Request #337948 · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/337948) for [Apple iMac 14,2: init by drupol · Pull Request #1089 · NixOS/nixos-hardware · GitHub](https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/pull/1089)
Make sure you’re using the latest kernel and the `nixos-unstable` branch and you’ll be having those new things. Most probably this will fix your issue.
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### Author:  [@cederlunddd](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/cederlunddd)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2024, 9:43am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/3 "2024-09-03T09:43:11Z")
I’ll give it a try, thank you!
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### Author:  [@cederlunddd](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/cederlunddd)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/4 "2024-09-05T14:31:09Z")
I regret to inform that this unfortunately did not solve my problem with my wifi card. I initially attempted installing just the unstable packages [(as explained here)](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/installing-only-a-single-package-from-unstable/5598/2) after upgrading my kernel to latest, but since that didn’t work I changed to the unstable branch fully, but unfortunately that did not cause the driver to work either.
---
### Author:  [@eljamm](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/eljamm)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2024, 4:59pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/5 "2024-09-05T16:59:23Z")
Does this work?
```nix
# load broadcom wireless driver
boot.kernelModules = ["wl"];
boot.extraModulePackages = with config.boot.kernelPackages; [broadcom_sta];
# blacklist similar modules to avoid collision
boot.blacklistedKernelModules = ["b43" "bcma"];
```
I got this from a [GitHub search](https://github.com/search?q=lang%3Anix+%22bcma%22&type=code) for similar configs.
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### Author:  [@cederlunddd](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/cederlunddd)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2024, 7:36am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/6 "2024-09-06T07:36:04Z")
Yes, that worked, on the unstable branch at least. Thank you so much! I’ll see if it works on the stable branch as well, but if not then I’ll keep it as it is right now.
Edi: The solution works on the stable version 24.05 Uakari as well.
---
### Author:  [@sawyer01](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/sawyer01)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/broadcom-bcm43142-wifi-issues/51557/7 "2025-07-20T15:27:01Z")
I’ve the same issue, with latest stable version of 25.05 nixos.
Now I got this NIC “working” switching to unstable channel (25.11), but I’m very newbie in NixOs and I’m not sure i did things in right way 😕
Anyway the networkmanager only sees 2.4 GHz networks, idk if the driver issue or something related to SSID with identical name