You are not logged in.

#1 2014-07-14 12:54:38

Tomptez
Member
Registered: 2014-07-14
Posts: 4

WLAN-stick really slow

Hi,

I'm using the wlan-stick TP-LINK WL-WN821M and I never had much problems with it using windows. Now I set it up using Arch linux, following the Arch wiki, everything worked out alright and I got it working.

The only problem is: I noticed that the internet speed is really slow. I tested the speed on windown 8 where i got around 14 Mb/s, I tried it on a Debian based distribution where I got around 6.5 Mb/s which is already significantly slower (I still haven't checked which network manager it uses) but on Arch I only got 2.2 Mb/s Download speed which is pretty slow. (For all measurements I used firefox and speedtest.net) The upload speed stayed around the same at 1.3 Mb/s so I assume that the problem is the amount of data coming through between my WLAN-stick and the router.

Have you any advices how I can fix it? Is the problem caused by the different drivers maybe or is it maybe a wrong driver on my Arch?

Thank you very much,
Tomptez

Offline

#2 2014-07-16 11:53:14

sugartest
Member
Registered: 2014-07-09
Posts: 38

Re: WLAN-stick really slow

Hi, I think it might be as you said a driver problem.

Is that your Wireless USB stick? What does lspci return when you look at the network cards ? Does it indicate the chipset it uses (I couldn't find it in the datasheet) ? If it does (and it should), you'll be able to see if the correct driver is installed. Another solution would be that the driver isn't loaded and the stick is only patially supported by a kernel module.

I hope it will be of some help.


An Arch Linux enthousiast and a Linux fan in general, mostly interrested in command line use, security issues, code learning and networks.

Offline

#3 2014-07-17 23:52:31

jmcarthur
Member
Registered: 2011-04-10
Posts: 2

Re: WLAN-stick really slow

Mine got slower after a kernel update about a month ago (I don't remember exactly which update did it). I downgraded and waited a while, then upgraded again a couple days ago in the hopes that it had simply been fixed, but it hasn't. I have the same wireless stick that you do.

Edit: Found https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=183257 . About to try it. Will report back.

Edit 2: It worked.

Last edited by jmcarthur (2014-07-18 00:02:29)

Offline

#4 2014-07-18 08:47:11

sugartest
Member
Registered: 2014-07-09
Posts: 38

Re: WLAN-stick really slow

sugartest wrote:

What does lspci return when you look at the network cards ? Does it indicate the chipset it uses (I couldn't find it in the datasheet) ? If it does (and it should)[...]

You firstly have to check the output of lspci to know the chipstet of your USB stick (you can grep what you want in the results for more efficiency):
(here is an exemple for an ethernet, same goes for wireless)

# lspci | grep Ethernet

Then you'll see (I hope for you) the chipset specs (mine is a shi*** rtl8192se)

After that you'll need to find a way to output currently loaded kernel modules:

# lsmod | less

Will output something like that:

soundcore          7264   1 snd
ppdev                6688   0
snd_page_alloc   9156    1 snd_pcm
psmouse            56180  0
lp                     8964    0

Now you are able to determine wether your driver is loaded or not, if it isn't just install it and run:

# sudo modprobe <your_lil_driver>

For more information on modprobe see here

or for more advanced stuffs:

# man modprobe

EDIT:

jmcarthur wrote:

Edit: Found https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=183257 . About to try it. Will report back.

Edit 2: It worked.

That sure is a nice workarournd waiting for the driver to be fixed wink

Last edited by sugartest (2014-07-18 08:53:23)


An Arch Linux enthousiast and a Linux fan in general, mostly interrested in command line use, security issues, code learning and networks.

Offline

#5 2014-07-25 20:15:42

Tomptez
Member
Registered: 2014-07-14
Posts: 4

Re: WLAN-stick really slow

Well, sorry for the late answer, took me a little bit to try because i was really busy recently but it worked perfectly, so thank you very much.

One last short question for bette understanding: How could I know that my stick actually uses the module ath9k_htc and what exactly does  the option nohwcrypt=1 do?

Offline

#6 2014-07-25 20:42:26

anatolik
Developer
Registered: 2012-09-27
Posts: 458

Re: WLAN-stick really slow

How could I know that my stick actually uses the module ath9k_htc

Check output 'lsusb' and 'dmesg' for information about your hardware. dmesg in particular should report what driver your hardware uses.

Also check 'lsmod' for list of all used modules and then 'modinfo $ MODULENAME' to get more information about the driver.

UPDATE: There is also tool 'lshw'  https://www.archlinux.org/packages/comm … 6_64/lshw/ that shows hardware information.

Last edited by anatolik (2014-07-25 22:39:06)


Read it before posting http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Ruby gems repository done right https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=182729
Fast initramfs generator with security in mind https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Booster

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB