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browntown

Member

From: Salem, OR USA

Registered: 2012-11-20

Posts: 63

atheros 9285 card in netbook extremely low signal strength

Hi folks, I'm still a newbie but have tried lots of what google suggests, but am still stuck.

My netbook can't hold on to my wireless signal more than 10 feet away from the router.  I've found quite a few arch problems with ath9k driver in the kernel but none of the fixes seem to help.  Since I'm still new I'll have to ask what information you need to help you diagnose. 

I'm using Kernel 3.6.8-1-Arch with openbox and wicd as my net manager with wpa-supplicant for my wpa2 password
I've installed compat-drivers with no success
I've added the nohwcrypt line in the config with no success

$ iwconfig
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"thisguysrouter"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 4C:E6:76:AB:CE:34   
          Bit Rate=65 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=54/70  Signal level=-56 dBm  <**** Thats 1 foot away from my router!!!!
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:1  Invalid misc:75   Missed beacon:0

$ iw wlan0 info
Interface wlan0
	ifindex 3
	wdev 0x1
	addr c0:f8:da:1b:e2:ed
	type managed
	wiphy 0
	channel 6 (2437 MHz) HT20

02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device e016
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	Memory at 94000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: ath9k

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by browntown (2012-12-02 08:30:55)

10PinkPanther

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2012-11-10

Posts: 374

Re: atheros 9285 card in netbook extremely low signal strength

My signal level  is -56 and I've found on Google that it's strong signal.Laptop is about 10m away from the router.The diference beetwen yours and mine iwconfig is that your "invalid misc:75" while mine is 0.So it means that your problem is not a week signal.

Last edited by 10PinkPanther (2012-12-02 08:51:10)

browntown

Member

From: Salem, OR USA

Registered: 2012-11-20

Posts: 63

Re: atheros 9285 card in netbook extremely low signal strength

Yeah, my -56dbm is 0.5 meters away from the router. If I go 5 meters away the connection will drop. This same netbook with windows 7 picked up the whole neighborhood with at least 10 different signals, some 60 meters away.  Something is wrong with ath9k I figure, and I'm hoping someone can point me to some obscure .conf file where I can ## out a line that says 9285 is a crappy card.