Arch Linux

jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Very Slow Wireless

Hey All,

I have a Foxconn Nettop that I am running Arch Linux on. It has the RealTek RTL8191SEvA wireless controller. I've got it setup and working with the WiFi here at my work, but it is unbelievable slow. Its download rate is around 1.2Mbps and upload at 8.52Mbps. My laptop clocks around 35Mbps on the same network. If I switch back to a wired connection on the nettop it clocks around 40Mbps.

Where do I start with figuring out the bottleneck?

Thanks in advance!

James

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,355

Re: Very Slow Wireless

Lets start with the output of iwconfig

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jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Re: Very Slow Wireless

Here's what it shows.

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"IE World HQ (2.4 GHz)"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 74:44:01:48:C7:18   
          Bit Rate=72.2 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=63/70  Signal level=-47 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:21   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,355

Re: Very Slow Wireless

ESSID:"IE World HQ "

Really? (That does not mean Internet Explorer does it?)

Kidding aside, I do not think your problems are because of the quality of the link.

Can you post the output of
cat /proc/net/wireless
ip addr
and
ip route

When connected to the wireless

---

Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Re: Very Slow Wireless

Lol... no, it certainly does not mean Internet Explorer!

cat /proc/net/wireless

Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed | WE
 face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon | 22
 wlan0: 0000   61.  -49.  -256        0      0      0      0    130        0

ip addr

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether d0:27:88:5e:71:ec brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 68:a3:c4:3b:28:7f brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.1.10.38/24 brd 10.1.10.255 scope global wlan0
    inet6 fe80::6aa3:c4ff:fe3b:287f/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

ip route

default via 10.1.10.1 dev wlan0  metric 303 
10.1.10.0/24 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope link  src 10.1.10.38  metric 303

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,355

Re: Very Slow Wireless

That all looks reasonable.  I don't think the problems are coming from the lower layers of the network. 

I have no solid suggestions, except perhaps trying a different kernel.  Sorry I am not being more helpful.

---

Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Re: Very Slow Wireless

That all looks reasonable.  I don't think the problems are coming from the lower layers of the network. 

I have no solid suggestions, except perhaps trying a different kernel.  Sorry I am not being more helpful.

Dang. Any suggested reading on how to try a different kernel?

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: Very Slow Wireless

That all looks reasonable.  I don't think the problems are coming from the lower layers of the network. 

I have no solid suggestions, except perhaps trying a different kernel.  Sorry I am not being more helpful.

Dang. Any suggested reading on how to try a different kernel?

I see you noted the difference between 'Report' and 'Reply' 

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jamgood96

Member

Registered: 2012-01-09

Posts: 42

Re: Very Slow Wireless

That all looks reasonable.  I don't think the problems are coming from the lower layers of the network. 

I have no solid suggestions, except perhaps trying a different kernel.  Sorry I am not being more helpful.

Dang. Any suggested reading on how to try a different kernel?

I see you noted the difference between 'Report' and 'Reply' 

Yeah, um, my bad. lol. I was wondering why my post wasn't up, then stupidly realized I hit report not quote. Sorry.

Markus00000

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 323

Re: Very Slow Wireless

For what it's worth: My wireless speed has dropped suddenly and massively. Having the same laptop standing on the exact same spot for over a year now, the rate came down from 12/24/36 to 1 MBit/s. Basically, the only thing I get anymore is lots of timeouts, it's probably not 1 MBit/s but much less.

The card is: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205.

I'll try another kernel now as ewaller suggested.

Edit: Under Windows I still see the usual rates.

Edit: [SOLVED] Downgrading the kernel to 3.3.8 fixed the issue for me. Hopefully it works for everybody else as well. Thanks ewaller for the great tip!

Last edited by Markus00000 (2012-06-17 05:39:20)

snovik

Member

Registered: 2012-05-06

Posts: 140

Re: Very Slow Wireless

I had similar slow wireless problem on older kernels on ubuntu before I switched to arch as my main system. The solution there was, as far as I remember, to disable encryption flags on the wireless card. I do not remember the details now but may be it can give you a fresh direction.

snovik

Member

Registered: 2012-05-06

Posts: 140

Re: Very Slow Wireless

I think this is what helped me http://askubuntu.com/questions/37409/wh … eless-card

bennylb0

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 66

Re: Very Slow Wireless

For what it's worth: My wireless speed has dropped suddenly and massively. Having the same laptop standing on the exact same spot for over a year now, the rate came down from 12/24/36 to 1 MBit/s. Basically, the only thing I get anymore is lots of timeouts, it's probably not 1 MBit/s but much less.

The card is: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205.

I'll try another kernel now as ewaller suggested.

Edit: Under Windows I still see the usual rates.

Edit: [SOLVED] Downgrading the kernel to 3.3.8 fixed the issue for me. Hopefully it works for everybody else as well. Thanks ewaller for the great tip!

I also have the Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 and suddenly speeds dropped after upgrade to kernel 3.4.2. Downgrading to kernal 3.3.8 also fixed my problem.

Thanks to Markus00000 and ewaller.

Markus00000

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 323

Re: Very Slow Wireless

Just upgraded to Linux 3.4.3 and my connection rate is still normal. Seems to be 3.4.2 only.

I think I spotted some wireless patches in the latest change log which could be related.

bennylb0

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 66

Re: Very Slow Wireless

Yep same result here after upgrade to 3.4.3. Problem seems to be rectified.

Markus00000

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 323

Re: Very Slow Wireless

The problem was gone with 3.4.3 but then suddenly reappeared. I downgraded to 3.3.8 once more. Confusing.

bennylb0

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 66

Re: Very Slow Wireless

I feel like I'm echoing everything you say but yep the same thing happened to me. I've gone back to 3.3.8 and I'm going to leave it there for a while.

Is this something we should be reporting to the kernel maintainers?

Markus00000

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 323

Re: Very Slow Wireless

I have zero experience with this and therefore I'm absolutely unsure.

Markus00000

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 323

Re: Very Slow Wireless

So, bennylb0, in case you haven't tested it already: Linux 3.4.4 works for me! :-)

bennylb0

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 66

Re: Very Slow Wireless

I'll give it a try.

bennylb0

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 66

Re: Very Slow Wireless

Yep finally works here too. Thanks for letting me know!