Internet connectivity issues

Sasamus · 2013-09-24 20:04:44

A while back I did some upgrades on my computer, along with that i switched motherboard to a MSI X79A-GD45 (8D).

Ever since then I've had issues with my Internet connection.
About 70% of my boots I get a connection but with a sometimes up to >90% packet loss, never lower than 60% either.
The rest of them is split with getting no connection at all and getting a perfect connection.

It does not seem to matter what I use to get that connection, I've tried using dhcpcd, dhclient, wicd and networkmanager. And varying settings for all of them.
The results always seem to be pretty much the same.

However, there are two circumstances that seem to make the connection work perfectly every time.

The first is that I completely cut the power to my computer a few seconds before I boot. After that the connection is established fast and I have 0% packet loss.

The other is two related ones, the connection works flawlessly when running a live-cd with Ubuntu 12.04 and when using an actual installation of Ubuntu 13.04.
I found out that those use networkmanager and doesn't have dhcpcd installed.
However I've tried both of those approaches on Arch to no avail.

Now, after almost a month of testing, thinking and searching I turn to these forums in hope that there are someone that knows something I don't.

ewaller · 2013-09-25 00:03:13

First, welcome to Arch Linux. I really am sincere in this welcome.

Now, I am going to be a bit unpleasant.

Is there a question in there?

I've tried using dhcpcd, dhclient, wicd and networkmanager.

You realize that those programs don't all do the same thing?

And varying settings for all of them.
The results always seem to be pretty much the same.

There is not much to go by there. You must be specific.

Also, you tell us about the motherboard. Why? You don't specify wired or wireless Ethernet. Why?
You do not tell us which chip sets your Ethernet interface(s) are using. Why?
Assuming this is a wireless problem, you do not tell us anything about the access point (Open, WEP, WPA 1/2, -g, -n, dual band)

You may want to read the article linked from my signature, then please provide a bit more information by which we may be able to help.

Last edited by ewaller (2013-09-25 00:03:43)

Pse · 2013-09-25 04:31:52

Hmm, would you mind trying with a Fedora 20 alpha live-cd? I'd like to see if the kernel version (which is older in Ubuntu) has to do with your problem.

Link to Fedora 20 alpha: http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-prerelease#desktops

Last edited by Pse (2013-09-25 04:32:47)

Sasamus · 2013-09-25 07:39:45

ewaller wrote:

First, welcome to Arch Linux. I really am sincere in this welcome.

Thank you, however. While this account is new, I'm not. I've been using Arch for several year now. Which should have meant I was better at asking for help.
I don't know what happened there, perhaps it's because it was late and I was frustrated.
Oh well, I'll try to clear things up.

ewaller wrote:

Now, I am going to be a bit unpleasant.

No worries, I needed to do a better job at clarifying things.

ewaller wrote:

Is there a question in there?

I suppose the question would be: Does anyone know whats wrong and what I can do to fix it?

ewaller wrote:

I've tried using dhcpcd, dhclient, wicd and networkmanager.
You realize that those programs don't all do the same thing?

I do, I know they are not doing exactly the same thing. And that wicd and networkmanager are using/can use the other two for their connection handling.
But for my use they where all used to establish a connection.

ewaller wrote:

And varying settings for all of them.
The results always seem to be pretty much the same.
There is not much to go by there. You must be specific.

That was very vague of me,
I might have tried some minor settings I've forgotten.
The main thing is that I tried using both a dynamic ip address and a static one on all of them.
And with the results being the same I meant that about 70% of the time I get a connection with horrible packet loss.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to find out/know if there where any other differences.

ewaller wrote:

Also, you tell us about the motherboard. Why? You don't specify wired or wireless Ethernet. Why?

I gave the name of my motherboard because among the parts I upgraded it seemed to be the one related to my problems.
And I'm using wired Ethernet, really silly of me to forget to mention that.

ewaller wrote:

You do not tell us which chip sets your Ethernet interface(s) are using. Why?

My chipset is: Intel Corporation 82579V Gigabit Network Connection, which uses e1000e as a driver.

Sorry for making this unnecessarily hard for both of us.

Sasamus · 2013-09-25 08:20:36

Pse wrote:

Hmm, would you mind trying with a Fedora 20 alpha live-cd? I'd like to see if the kernel version (which is older in Ubuntu) has to do with your problem.
Link to Fedora 20 alpha: http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-prerelease#desktops

The first time I tried it I got a perfect connection. Luckily i tried it three more times.
The result was two times working and two times not working.
The first not working time ping gave me a "network unreachable".
The second time not working I got a connection but with 87% packet loss.

So it doesn't seem like a kernel issue, right?

Or it's something specific with Ubuntus kernels since two version with a year apart worked flawlessly.

mr.MikyMaus · 2013-09-25 10:01:39

Could it be related to say, powersaving? did you try to disable acpi and friends?

And, perhaps a stupid question, but when was the last time you tried Ubuntu? I mean was it like yesterday or half a year ago? As if it was a long time ago the hardware could have gone corrupt. Did you try to swicth cables?

Sasamus · 2013-09-25 10:16:40

mr.MikyMaus wrote:

Could it be related to say, powersaving? did you try to disable acpi and friends?
And, perhaps a stupid question, but when was the last time you tried Ubuntu? I mean was it like yesterday or half a year ago? As if it was a long time ago the hardware could have gone corrupt. Did you try to swicth cables?

I tried a full installation of Ubuntu 13.04 two days ago. So I doubt it's the hardware or the cable.
Although it's probable that it's some compatibility issue with the hardware and something in Arch.

I should probably add that these issues exists in the Arch live media as well, so the issue doesn't lie with my specific Arch configuration.

mr.MikyMaus · 2013-09-25 10:37:12

another stupid question: how did you come up with those numbers/percentages?

Sasamus · 2013-09-25 10:44:38

mr.MikyMaus wrote:

another stupid question: how did you come up with those numbers/percentages?

ping returns the packet loss.
And for the percentages of how often the things happen, they are just rough estimates.

Pse · 2013-09-25 20:08:36

Sasamus wrote:

So it doesn't seem like a kernel issue, right?

Actually, it does seem to be a kernel issue, since Fedora 20 is using a fairly recent kernel, just like Arch does. Ubuntu on the other hand, isn't. Could you please find out what versions of the kernel are used in the Ubuntu versions you tried? You may also want to try the LTS kernel: linux-lts in the official repositories.

Sasamus · 2013-09-25 20:20:56

Pse wrote:

Sasamus wrote:
So it doesn't seem like a kernel issue, right?
Actually, it does seem to be a kernel issue, since Fedora 20 is using a fairly recent kernel, just like Arch does. Ubuntu on the other hand, isn't. Could you please find out what versions of the kernel are used in the Ubuntu versions you tried? You may also want to try the LTS kernel: linux-lts in the official repositories.

Actually, I just realized this and was just about to reboot with linux-lts when I saw this. I even checked the kernel versions I was using.

Ubuntu 13.04: 3.8
Fedora 20: 3.11.1

And for Arch.
linux(using now): 3.11.1
linux-lts: 3.10.12

So it seems like the Fedora version I tried used the same kernel as my Arch installation was using.

I'll return shortly with the results of trying linux-lts.

Sasamus · 2013-09-25 22:31:12

Now I've tried linux-lts. It didn't help. However, since it's 3.10.12 is still newer than the one Ubuntu used 3.8,
I tried the closest older kernel to 3.8 I could find in the AUR, which was 3.6.9. (Package linux-rifs) and the connection worked flawlessly.

So it seem to be pretty certain that it's a kernel issue.

However, the working kernel is old and with patches I'm not interested in. And my graphical environment don't work without downgrades.
So now I'll try a newer kernel that the one in linux to see if that works. More specifically I'll try linux-mainline.

Edit:

I've tried linux-mainline and it didn't help either so I deceded to try another older kernel that was still newer than Ubuntus one.

linux-bfs: 3.9.2 And it worked as well.

So, since a 3.9.2 worked while a 3.10.12 didn't it seems like the issue appeared around 3.10.

Edit:

I might add that every time I reboot from a kernel where the connection works to the standard one the connection on the standard one will establish and work as it should, but only once, if I reboot again it won't work.
The same behavior it has when I cut the power completely before booting.

Last edited by Sasamus (2013-09-26 10:13:01)

Sasamus · 2013-09-26 11:33:12

I've made and interesting discovery.
Short recap:
linux: 3.11.1-2, Doesn't work.
linux-mainline: 3.12.rc2-1, Doesn't work.

The three kernels that work so far have been older that 3.10.

But now I found that "linux-ck", which uses the same kernel as "linux" but with the ck1 patchset and the Brain Fuck Scheduler, works 6 out of 7 tries. I'll see if it fails again in the future otherwise that one time might have been coincidental.

Plus it has a nvidia driver for it so I can use it for now. I'll probably do some research on why these patches make it work so much better. But I have to get some work done first.

Pse · 2013-09-26 14:28:33

You may have found a regression in recent kernels. If you post to the kernel mailing list you'll probably be asked to try to bisect which commit caused the regression. What you describe (works fine with a newer kernel if you had just booted an older one) appears to point to some sort of initialization problem. Perhaps related to firmware? In any case, if mainline does not work, you'll need to bisect the right commit, which may take some time off your hands. It kinda sucks, sorry.

Sasamus · 2013-09-28 08:38:45

Pse wrote:

You may have found a regression in recent kernels. If you post to the kernel mailing list you'll probably be asked to try to bisect which commit caused the regression. What you describe (works fine with a newer kernel if you had just booted an older one) appears to point to some sort of initialization problem. Perhaps related to firmware? In any case, if mainline does not work, you'll need to bisect the right commit, which may take some time off your hands. It kinda sucks, sorry.

I will probably do that in a couple of weeks if nothing changes, I simply don't have time for anything like that right now.

However, I have done some other discoveries.

If I bypass my gateway and plug my Ethernet cable straight into the wall things work perfectly on all kernels I've tried, old and new.
Same goes for if I use usb tethering from my phone. which is connected wireless to my gateway and works great.
Which. I might add, two windows 7 computers does as well and they work fine. The only thing that uses Ethernet other than my computer is our tv, and it works great too.

So there seems to me like 3.10< kernels have some issue with my gateway, and not with my motherboard/network chipset as I previously thought.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-09-24 20:04:44

Internet connectivity issues

#2 2013-09-25 00:03:13

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#3 2013-09-25 04:31:52

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#4 2013-09-25 07:39:45

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#5 2013-09-25 08:20:36

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#6 2013-09-25 10:01:39

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#7 2013-09-25 10:16:40

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#8 2013-09-25 10:37:12

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#9 2013-09-25 10:44:38

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#10 2013-09-25 20:08:36

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#11 2013-09-25 20:20:56

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#12 2013-09-25 22:31:12

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#13 2013-09-26 11:33:12

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#14 2013-09-26 14:28:33

Re: Internet connectivity issues

#15 2013-09-28 08:38:45

Re: Internet connectivity issues

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