How to stop the blinking wifi LED on Ubuntu laptops with Intel wireless cards

Apparently Intel has decided that people using Ubuntu (and Linux in general) on laptops with an Intel wireless card simply must know when data is being transferred over the connection. To that end, Intel wifi cards constantly blink the LED whenever data is being transferred. I think every other wireless card on the planet just has a solid LED light to indicate the wireless is on (or off, using the physical switch), but not Intel cards. Personally I find the constantly blinking lights pretty annoying.

There’s no easy-to-find setting to change the LED to always-on. But there is a solution: create a little script to change the LED to solid whenever you connect to a new wireless network. It’s pretty easy to do, too. Here we go:

1. Create a new file using Nano:

   sudo nano /etc/network/if-up.d/wifi-led-noblink

2. Paste the following into your new file using ctrl + shift + v

   #!/bin/sh
   # This script prevents the wifi light from blinking when on.
   # To enable this script, create a soft link to it in /etc/network/if-up.d/
   echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::RX/trigger
   echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::TX/trigger
   echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::radio/trigger
   echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::assoc/trigger

   Press ctrl + x to quit Nano, then y to save your script.

3. Make the script executable:

   sudo chmod u+x /etc/network/if-up.d/wifi-led-noblink

That’s it! Next time you connect to a network, your wifi LED should remain solid. This works in 9.10 Karmic. And next time you find yourself cursing the guys at Intel, just remember: at least you don’t have a Broadcom card!

2010-07-21 Update!

As of kernel 2.6.34 this solution no longer works for me. However, commenter DM has suggested an alternative that does seem to work again.

Run the following command to create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/wlan.conf with a setting to disable the light:

Restart your laptop after running that command. This different solution should work if the above solution doesn’t.

2012-11-25 Update!

Commenter silli suggests an alternate solution for 12.04 Precise that’s similar to DM’s solution:

This has been reported to work on 12.04 Precise. Make sure to restart your laptop after running that code!