Problems with rtl8192e Driver

Don Coyote · 2013-01-28 06:58:56

The wifi on my X201i has been having serious trouble with a new router since moving into a new house. The router is a NetGear Rangemax WPN824 v2. With my old install, not only did it not connect, it would cause other machines to loose their connection and continue to knock them off the wifi every few minutes. I've gone with a complete new install using the December 2012 media. In trying to troubleshoot it on my own I've been unable to find a consistent line of directions from the various Wikis on the subject and have been doing reinstalls when i get hopelessly lost and stuck.

Currently i've done a minimalist install, got the bootloader going, booted back in and brought up the wired connection. The wifi card is a Realtek RTL8191SEvB which i believe should use the rtl8192e driver. The Wireless Setup wiki states that Network Manager has shown better results that wicd, so i move to the Network Manager wiki. At the setup PolicyKit Permissions step it directs to General Troubleshooting#Session Permissions where i get the correct results from the loginctl command, but then it says a dbus session should be started. I have no desktop environment downloaded, so i go to copy /etc/skel/.xinitrc to my home directory, but there is no .xinitrc there, just a few bash scripts.

Where do i get .xinitrc from? Why am i being directed to work with X server scripts when i'm just trying to establish a connection using command line tools?

WonderWoofy · 2013-01-28 07:16:48

Unfortunately this is typical of these realtek cards. I had the same card (I think) and it used the rtl8192ce module. It was the worst pile of terribleness that I had ever come across. I think what makes it so bad is that it kind of works... so you think that you can get it going... but nope, it just keeps doing the same shit.

Sorry I don't have any better news for you.

When I was using it for the short time I did, I turned off fwlps (firmware low power state) as well as ips (link power save). This helped my connection, but did nothing for the kicking of others that you are experiencing. Though some people report that this does nothing at all for their connection. Also some people find that swenc turned on helps as well (software encoding). All these options can be found with modinfo.

Don Coyote · 2013-01-28 08:24:55

It looks like NetworkManager might be a red herring at this point. I just went ahead to the Wireless Management part of the Wireless Setup wiki and started working from there. I've gone through the manual setup steps, but the dhcpcd command times out while waiting for carrier.

In trying to bring up the network processes the NetworkManager wiki had me take down, i can enable net-auto-wireless.service, but my attempts to start it produce a job failed notice. The journalctl entries i'm directed to show that netcfg-wpa is trying to work with wlan0, which is confusing since i have not yet tried to use netcfg and i thought wlan0 was the deprecated interface nomenclature. I guess this is why i feel like i'm going in circles and getting nowhere on this, i can't tell what is or isn't up to date with the systemd stuff.

Hopefully a reboot will get me back to the pre-NM state so i don't need another reinstall...

Don Coyote · 2013-01-28 08:28:39

WonderWoofy wrote:

Unfortunately this is typical of these realtek cards. I had the same card (I think) and it used the rtl8192ce module. It was the worst pile of terribleness that I had ever come across. I think what makes it so bad is that it kind of works... so you think that you can get it going... but nope, it just keeps doing the same shit.
Sorry I don't have any better news for you.
When I was using it for the short time I did, I turned off fwlps (firmware low power state) as well as ips (link power save). This helped my connection, but did nothing for the kicking of others that you are experiencing. Though some people report that this does nothing at all for their connection. Also some people find that swenc turned on helps as well (software encoding). All these options can be found with modinfo.

Well, i was using it at my old house with a Linksys router with no problem, and have connected seemlessly to dozens of public access points with the same card over the last couple of years. I didn't notice this behavior until i came here and tried it on the Netgear. I suppose this means i should go find another router to configure my system on first, and then figure out the router issue once i know it is working normally...?

Edit: looking back in my notes, last time i installed the rtl8192se package from the AUR. Has that become rtl8192s by any chance?

Last edited by Don Coyote (2013-01-28 08:35:43)

WonderWoofy · 2013-01-29 02:22:29

That I am not sure about. I know that some of the rtl8192* modules work better than others. So if you are able to use NetworkManager, I would say do it. But I also think that if you are having trouble with a specific router, than that very well may be the problem. If you are not using ipv6 (if your ISP does not offer it in your area, as most don't) it might be worthwhile to disable it. Also, you can stop dhcpcd from polling for an ipv6 address by adding noipv6rs to dhcpcd.conf.

Don Coyote · 2013-02-16 19:05:48

Ok, trying to troubleshoot after fresh install:

'lsmod | grep 80211' shows:
mac80211 432338 2 rtlwifi,rtl8192se

'dmesg | grep frimware' shows:
Loading frimware rtlwifi/rtl8192sefw.bin

So it looks to me like the driver and firmware are being installed. I am seeing a wlp2s0 interface, but
'ip link set wlp2s0 up' doesn't change that ip link still shows "state DOWN". However, it doesn't display any error message either.

'wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp2s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' [BTW, the wpa_supplicant wiki instructs to add "-Dwext" but it seems to be the default?] returns:
Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant

'iw dev wlp2s0 link' returns:
Not connected.

The wireless setup wiki says "Note: In some setups it may still display "Access Point: Not-Associated", continue on to the next step." but i'm not sure if that is close enough to apply here so i move on...

'dhcpcd wlp2s0' returns:
dhcpcd[18507]: sending commands to master dhcpcd process

At this point, pinging Google returns an unkown host and pinging 8.8.8.8 returns that the network is unreachable.

I went through this process with another router and again now at home and it isn't even getting to the point of reaching the router and bumping off all of the other users anymore. Any advice on where to look for a failure here?

Otherwise my next step is to look into replacing the wifi card with something that is open source friendly, if there is one made that fits...

Don Coyote · 2013-02-23 19:47:47

Ok, the intel card just arrived. Will the kernel recognize the new configuration after installing the card and booting, or do i have to do something else?

Don Coyote · 2013-02-26 06:23:34

Turns out BIOS does not like different cards (even though it is used in different versions of the X201i) and i have to figure out how to fool it at POST to accept the Centrino card. Will start a new thread...

Arch Linux

#1 2013-01-28 06:58:56

Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#2 2013-01-28 07:16:48

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#3 2013-01-28 08:24:55

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#4 2013-01-28 08:28:39

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#5 2013-01-29 02:22:29

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#6 2013-02-16 19:05:48

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#7 2013-02-23 19:47:47

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

#8 2013-02-26 06:23:34

Re: Problems with rtl8192e Driver

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