Arch Linux

pabi

Member

Registered: 2013-12-13

Posts: 21

[SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

I bought a new laptop (ausus UX330U). Everything works out of the box, but it has very bad WiFi connectivity.
It never gets above 50% signal streangth even when sitting right next to the router. It only gets about 10-20 Mbps where other devices get ~100 on the same router.

The wifi Chip is a Intel 8260 rev 3a:

lspci -v 

02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 0110
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 127
	Memory at ef000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
	Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number f4-8c-50-ff-ff-c0-ac-10
	Capabilities: [14c] Latency Tolerance Reporting
	Capabilities: [154] L1 PM Substates
	Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
	Kernel modules: iwlwifi

I found this thread, but reverting back to version 21 did not work for me.
Anyone got an idea what could cause the problem, or some further troubleshooting tips?

Last edited by pabi (2017-05-31 19:00:20)

pabi

Member

Registered: 2013-12-13

Posts: 21

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

I just found this bug report.
The 27 version is already in my /lib/firmware, but it does not even try to load it, it starts at 26:

dmesg | grep wifi

[    1.851432] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    1.864702] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-8000C-26.ucode failed with error -2
[    1.864800] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-8000C-25.ucode failed with error -2
[    1.864811] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-8000C-24.ucode failed with error -2
[    1.864820] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-8000C-23.ucode failed with error -2
[    1.864828] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-8000C-22.ucode failed with error -2
[    1.873873] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: loaded firmware version 21.302800.0 op_mode iwlmvm

mattseaton

Member

Registered: 2017-04-17

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

I have the same wifi adapter and the same problem.  I hope you can find a solution.  I get horrible speeds and frequent drops where I have to disconnect and reconnect.

pabi

Member

Registered: 2013-12-13

Posts: 21

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

Unfortunately, nothing yet and I'm out of ideas for troubleshooting. It did work fine on the windows install the laptop came with so it's no a hardware defect, but I also do not find any errors in any logs.

javamarket

Member

Registered: 2017-01-31

Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

I've found that disabling the power save on the intel wifi device to have a major improvement.

/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/wifi-powerman-off.sh

#!/usr/bin/env sh

IFACE=$1 STATUS=$2
IW=/usr/bin/iw
WLAN_IFACE=wlp1s0

if [ ! -x $IW ]; then
	exit 1
fi

if [ "$IFACE" = $WLAN_IFACE ] && [ "$STATUS" = "up" ]; then
	echo "[SCRIPT] Disabling wifi power mgmt"
	$IW dev $IFACE set power_save off
fi

Last edited by javamarket (2017-05-22 23:36:07)

LaurentvdB

Member

Registered: 2017-04-24

Posts: 32

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

Hi,

I have a similar chip:

3a:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 0050
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 288
	Memory at dc200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
	Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [40] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number e4-a4-71-ff-ff-24-af-90
	Capabilities: [14c] Latency Tolerance Reporting
	Capabilities: [154] L1 PM Substates
	Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
	Kernel modules: iwlwifi

But I do not have any problems. I constantly get 30MB/s up/down (which is the limit I can get). The only difference we have is that I run the lts kernel (currently at 4.9.29-1-lts) so you might want to try that one and see if it resolves the issues.

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

@pabi
You do realize that in the bug report you link to, the reporter is asked to try both the new firmware and a patched driver. Trying to use only a new firmware is not going to help.

You might want to look at the git repo the reporter is pointed at and see which modifications have been made, then follow the stable kernel releases and see when the same changes are included. Until then try the LTS kernel as LaurentvdB suggests.

---

R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

mcloaked

Member

From: Yorkshire, UK

Registered: 2012-02-02

Posts: 1,238

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

I am the user who posted in the linked bug report - and who tried the fixed more recent firmware and patched driver - I haven't had time to test the machine I have with 8260 with the 4.11 kernel and updated linux-firmware that was released today, but I am hoping to do so next weekend - and hope that the more recent v27 firmware will be loaded with the driver in the newest kernel.  In this thread could the OP say whether he/she is using kernel 4.10 or if his system has been tried with 4.11 and the new firmware (linux-firmware 20170422.ade8332-1). When I get time to test my system fully updated I will report back on how the wifi performance is behaving. Certainly with the test firmware and driver loaded at the time I was working with Emmanuel Grumbach to test his fixed code it made the difference between an almost unusable wifi and one which was pretty stable and with significant speed improvement. That was about three months ago and hopefully there will have been more improvements since then. However please could the OP report on which kernel and firmware versions he/she has tested for this issue?

---

Mike C

LaurentvdB

Member

Registered: 2017-04-24

Posts: 32

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

The new kernel should pick up the new (and apparently less problematic) firmware automatically. Output in my situation (I switched to normal kernel for sake of example):

$ dmesg | grep iwl
[    1.612344] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    1.614633] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-8000C-28.ucode failed with error -2
[    1.616473] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: capa flags index 3 larger than supported by driver
[    1.616979] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: loaded firmware version 27.455470.0 op_mode iwlmvm
[    1.639744] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 8260, REV=0x208
[    1.641869] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled
[    1.642537] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled
[    2.185659] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-mvm-rs'
[    2.187385] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0 wlp58s0: renamed from wlan0
[    2.715171] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled
[    2.715452] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled
[    2.843578] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled
[    2.843896] iwlwifi 0000:3a:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Disabled

$ uname -r
4.11.2-1-ARCH

OP, could you run both commands on your machine and print the output?

pabi

Member

Registered: 2013-12-13

Posts: 21

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

Sorry I'm traveling and the moment and have infrequent internet access. At the time of the post I used Kernel 4.10 an tried all possible firmware versions.
I updated my system this morning, running Kernel 4.11.2-1 now which is using the version 27.
Signal streangth seems to be improved, I can't test for speed unfortunately, as I'm on hotel WiFi which is capped at 250kb/s. I will check tomorrow evening when I'm home and post the results.

mcloaked

Member

From: Yorkshire, UK

Registered: 2012-02-02

Posts: 1,238

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

Further to my earlier post - I have now updated my machine and have consistent wifi performance for 8260 with an average download speed using rsync of around 50Mbps ( just over 6MB/s) in a less than optimal physical location - so with kernel 4.11.3-1-ARCH and the latest linux-firmware package 8260 is performing well for me. It sounded like the OP was getting much better performance, despite incomplete testing, with the earlier 4.11 kernel so if the OP finds the original problem is resolved, including an update to the current kernel, perhaps he could mark the thread as SOLVED?

---

Mike C

pabi

Member

Registered: 2013-12-13

Posts: 21

Re: [SOLVED] Very bad WIFI performance with Intel 8260

The performance is way better now, though not up speed with windows.
However it is usable now and I can happily purge windows again.
So this can be marked as solved.

Last edited by pabi (2017-05-31 18:59:40)