You are not logged in.

#1 2009-12-10 09:16:48

NovaAesa
Member
Registered: 2009-08-09
Posts: 6

slow internet while connected to wireless router

Hi all,

I'm having a few problems with the internet connection on my Arch x86_64 setup.

The symptom to the problem is that internet browsing and syncing with pacman is very slow. For example, it takes about 30 seconds to load www.google.com. Once I am there though, any searching occurs at its regular speed (i.e 200ms or something like that). Pacman updates are odd, the actual download of the package is quick, but there is a 30 second or so lag between when the last package has been downloaded and when the next package starts downloading. I ran a speed test on www.speedtest.net and got ~10M down and ~1M up (which is consistent with what my housemates get on their Windows machines and what I used to get when I was running Ubuntu). Although, there was that same 30 second wait for the actual www.speedtest.net page to load.

I have made sure that my hostname is set in both /etc/hosts and /etc/rc.conf
/etc/hosts

#<ip-address>   <hostname.domain.org>   <hostname>
127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost       pris

/etc/rc.conf

HOSTNAME="pris"

wlan0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(!wlan0)

gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)

Basically I am connecting to a wireless router, and am unable to connect via ethernet. DHCP is definitely what I should be using to connect.

Does anyone have any clues as to what I should be doing to move towards getting the problem fixed? I don't have all that much experience with wireless networks (or networking at all in that case). If anyone could point me in the right direction that would be swell.

Thanks!

Offline

#2 2009-12-10 18:33:53

zenlord
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2006-05-24
Posts: 1,221
Website

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

You are using the network-daemon I suppose? I have long ago switched to netcfg (net-profiles daemon), so I hope I'm not terribly wrong about this.

Firstly: by placing a ! before your device, you're not enabling your device automatically. So remove the '!' before 'wlan0'.

Next you should try to connect manually, that is by using ifconfig, iwconfig and dhcpcd as root. I think the wiki has some examples how to use them, but in general:
1. use ifconfig to bring the device up:
# ifconfig wlan0 up

2. connect to the wireless lan:
# iwconfig essid <essid>

3. get an IP:
# dhcpcd wlan0
or
# dhclient wlan0

In step 2 you should also insert your security. If it is WEP, you can just add the necessary options to iwconfig ('iwconfig --help'). If you have WPA/WPA2, then you should use wpa_supplicant in step 2b.

Also: check what chipset you're wireless card uses and if the right modules are loaded. The wiki has some darn good info about some of the more popular chipets and the quirks they sometimes require...

And lastly: check your signal strength once you're connected ('iwlist wlan0 scanning' should return some valuable info)

Zl.

Offline

#3 2009-12-10 20:40:58

NovaAesa
Member
Registered: 2009-08-09
Posts: 6

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

Thank you for the reply!

I removed the ! before wlan0 in the INTERFACES vector, and then added a ! to the networkmanager daemon in the DAEMONS vector. After a reboot, I ran a script that I had written before I installed Network Manager.

wireless.sh

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid 3-58HarrietSt-Belkin
dhcpcd wlan0

The output was as follows:

[ps@pris ~]$ sudo bash scripts/wireless.sh 
dhcpcd: version 5.1.3 starting
dhcpcd: wlan0: waiting for carrier
dhcpcd: wlan0: carrier acquired
dhcpcd: wlan0: rebinding lease of 192.168.2.3
dhcpcd: wlan0: acknowledged 192.168.2.3 from 192.168.2.1
dhcpcd: wlan0: checking for 192.168.2.3
dhcpcd: wlan0: leased 192.168.2.3 for infinity
dhcpcd: wlan0: MTU set to 1492
dhcpcd: forking to background

The output seems fairly reasonable to me, and the symptoms of the problem still exist when connected this way. As you can see from the script, I'm not using any security (I know, I know, bad, but there's a very long story and good reason behind it).


The wireless card that I have:

[ps@pris ~]$ lspci
...
05:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g
...

I am using the rt2x00 driver. I also have installed the rt2x00-rt61-fw firmware, which I installed when I originally setup the system (wireless would not work at all until I did this).

The wiki article http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Usi … eta_driver says that the rt61pci module should be auto loaded (because I haven't disabled it). It seems to be actually working (i.e. the card is doing its job, just at a very slow rate), so I don't think loading the module is the problem, although I will try this anyway when I get home from work today.

EDIT:
wireless signal strength is not the problem, network manager was showing 4 bars out of 4, and I'm about 3 meters from the access point.

Last edited by NovaAesa (2009-12-10 20:46:27)

Offline

#4 2009-12-10 21:57:44

pyther
Member
Registered: 2008-01-21
Posts: 1,395
Website

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

How does the card preform in Windows?

Has this always been a problem or is this something that just started recently?


Website - Blog - arch-home
Arch User since March 2005

Offline

#5 2009-12-10 22:48:09

NovaAesa
Member
Registered: 2009-08-09
Posts: 6

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

pyther, I have never had Windows installed on this machine. Up until about a week ago it had Ubuntu 9.10 installed on it, and the performance of the wireless card was perfect.

When I get home from work (in about 7 or 8 hours), I will make sure the rt61pci module is loaded properly (unless someone in the meantime tells me that doing that won't work). I've been working on this problem for a few days now, I'll try almost anything!

Last edited by NovaAesa (2009-12-10 22:48:27)

Offline

#6 2009-12-10 22:50:33

pyther
Member
Registered: 2008-01-21
Posts: 1,395
Website

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

Well that at least rules out or at least goes to show that interference on the channel is not likely.

What happens if you use an older kernel, maybe the kernel version ubuntu uses? Maybe there was a regression in the wireless driver which harmed performance?


Website - Blog - arch-home
Arch User since March 2005

Offline

#7 2009-12-11 22:25:38

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

From the description it almost looks like a dns problem, if it takes the dns server long to respond then pages will take long to start to open, but once you know the ip things should go more smoothly.

Maybe you can try to use the OpenDNS servers and check if it is a slow dns server problem or something else (here where I live the ISP's dns servers used to have that problem from time to time).


R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

Offline

#8 2009-12-12 19:59:26

brenix
Member
From: California
Registered: 2008-03-05
Posts: 185

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

R00KIE wrote:

From the description it almost looks like a dns problem, if it takes the dns server long to respond then pages will take long to start to open, but once you know the ip things should go more smoothly.

Maybe you can try to use the OpenDNS servers and check if it is a slow dns server problem or something else (here where I live the ISP's dns servers used to have that problem from time to time).

I'd agree with rookie. What I would do is edit/create /etc/resolv.conf.head and add the following into it and either reboot or restart networking..

options single-request
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

If that still doesn't work, it seems a lot of people have luck by disabling the IPv6 module too.

Last edited by brenix (2009-12-12 20:00:08)

Offline

#9 2010-01-06 15:48:11

tzochios
Member
Registered: 2009-11-23
Posts: 8

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

I can too confirm the issue with the same card.
I've already disabled the IPv6 module according to the respective wiki entry and created /etc/resolv.conf.head but the issue of connection timeout persists.
I've also enabled the testing repository in case a fix were available without any luck.
any help would be welcome

Offline

#10 2010-01-09 11:40:28

maxmuster
Member
Registered: 2010-01-09
Posts: 3

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

Hi!

I am having the same problems as NovaAesa (Arch, x86_64, 2.6.32, rt61pci). Lots of timeouts, then full speed for a short time. Some sites have a almost permanent timeout. Started three days ago. At first sight I that this is a problem with my DSL provider but my Laptop (Arch, x86_32, 2.6.31, ipw2200) does not show any of the symptons. I also checked that three days ago I have updated the kernel, so I am pretty sure that the problem lies there.

Regards,
Max Muster

PS: Both computers uses the same wireless router which sets them up via DHCP. So I guess there is no DNS issue.

Last edited by maxmuster (2010-01-09 11:42:07)

Offline

#11 2010-01-09 12:54:38

maxmuster
Member
Registered: 2010-01-09
Posts: 3

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

Short update:

disabled IPv6 -> no change
changed resolv.conf.head -> no change
downgraded iptables (which was upgraded together with the kernel) -> no change

I did not downgrade the kernel because it seems troublesome.

I also observed that getting a DHCP lease from the wireless router has become unreliable (on the main PC, not on the laptop which works ok) - often multiples tries are necessary. Maybe this is a rt61pci problem (which is part of the kernel, right)?

Offline

#12 2010-01-09 13:58:39

maxmuster
Member
Registered: 2010-01-09
Posts: 3

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

Second update:

I have downgraded the kernel to 2.6.31-6 (as described in the bottom of this http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 73#p684873 post). Internet runs normal again.

Offline

#13 2010-01-24 15:36:43

Luis Sousa
Member
From: Portugal
Registered: 2009-07-19
Posts: 36

Re: slow internet while connected to wireless router

Same problem here, and i solved it following this post.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 03#p694403
I posted how i did it in the end of the post...

Last edited by Luis Sousa (2010-01-24 15:53:23)


XP -> Ubuntu -> Arch

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB