Arch Linux

s3vv4

Member

Registered: 2011-08-03

Posts: 13

Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

Hi,

I just installed the latest Arch version and the performance of my wifi is very bad.
I tried it before in an Ubuntu 13.10 live image, and it seemed to work well, but in Arch it's very slow
until the point where pacman is throwing error messages because it's so slow.

I use wicd, disabled dhcpcd and dhclient in systemctl.
The network card is "02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 6b)", using iwlwifi kernel module.

I also tried Debian stable, but the ethernet card isn't even recognized there (v3.2 kernel I think), I don't feel like using Ubuntu..

Is this a driver issue with the more recent kernel in Arch?

EDIT: I also noticed that reconnecting to my network makes the very slow speed disappear for a few minutes.

EDIT2: So I guess I'm lucky, linux-lts seems to be a kernel that works with my network card, but this only indicates that my hardware
is not faulty, but the kernel module most likely not compatible.

EDIT3: Maybe it is working because crda was installed with linux-lts..

Last edited by s3vv4 (2014-02-25 11:46:22)

Tmn

Member

Registered: 2013-05-29

Posts: 13

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

I have the Lenovo X240, which has the same wlan Chip (intel 7260) and apparently intel fucked up. A friend told me that the card should in fact run with the linux-lts kernel (3.10?!?). Atleast that's what I'll try.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

3.10 definitely won't work, the driver is there but it's incomplete and requires a firmware version that intel never released.

New firmware was recently which fixes a lot of bugs, I don't think it's in the linux-firmware package that Arch ships. Check dmesg, if it says firmware older than 22.24.8.0 got loaded, download the latest version here: http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Dri … 24.8.0.tgz

Last edited by Gusar (2014-03-13 21:39:26)

Tmn

Member

Registered: 2013-05-29

Posts: 13

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

I just installed the linux-lts kernel, uname -r confirms that I'm running 3.10.33-1-lts and I all the problems are gone. Wlan went from 100KByte/s to 15MB/s. The firmware that the linux-lts kernel is using is 22.1.7.0

I'll try out the firmware you provided. Strangely other problems are gone too by switching to the lts kernel (Brigthness Buttons work)

Last edited by Tmn (2014-03-13 22:43:32)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

That's interesting. Maybe support got added somewhere along the way, the initial 3.10 release didn't have it. Let me check... Yep, there are several relevant commits in the 3.10 tree, I think the driver started working in 3.10.20 with this commit.

So that's one solution, the 3.10-lts kernel. The other might be using the latest kernel and downloading the firmware manually from the link I gave, until the 22.24.8.0 version makes it into the linux-firmware package.

Tmn

Member

Registered: 2013-05-29

Posts: 13

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

Thanks for linking those commits, this whole thing makes a little bit more sense now.

Have you actually tested the firmware update or do you "just" think it will solve the problems? I'll try the new firmware tommorow and will report back.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

I don't have this hardware, so I don't have personal experience with it. But the release announcement for the new firmware says "quite a few bug fixes".

Tmn

Member

Registered: 2013-05-29

Posts: 13

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

Okay, I found some time and tested the Newest Intel firmware. Seems to run pretty smooth, finally get over 100KB/s and the connection seems to be stable. As far as I know the new firmware contains a completly rewritten power management which seemed to be the cause of the problems.

Anyone who wants to install the firmware:
1. cp iwlwifi-7260-8.ucode /lib/firmware
2. reboot
3. Check if your using the newest version: dmesg | grep loaded\ firmware

Remeber that the firmware is only compatible with Kernel >= 3.13-5

Tested on Lenovo X240 with Intel 7260

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

@Tmn, you could just install/use the linux-firmware-git package from the AUR.  This should provide you with that most recent 7260-8 firmware as well, and would have the added benefit of not requiring one to manually stick untracked files in /usr.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: Thinkpad L440 wifi (Intel Wireless-N 7260) working poorly

@Tmn, you could just install/use the linux-firmware-git package from the AUR.

This firmware version isn't in git yet. What's in git is the same as in the non-git package, which is the buggy 22.15.8.0 version.