WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

Monero · 2022-11-01 18:03:24

Hi,

I have a PC on which I am dual booting both Windows 10 and Arch with all the latest updates installed.The WiFi router itself is not more than 10m away from me.
The WiFi adapter that I am using is the on-board WiFi from this motherboard: https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-strix-x … 6813119111

In windows the (motherboard) WFi adapter is recognized as "Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160Mhz" and in 9 independent runs at different points in time I get a median download speed of 295 Mbps and median upload speed of 108 Mbps.

In linux the output of `lspci -knn` gives me:

04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX200 [8086:2723] (rev 1a)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX200NGW [8086:0084]
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
Kernel modules: iwlwifi

and in 9 independent runs at different points in time I get a median download speed of 123 Mbps and median upload speed of 172 Mbps.

What's going on here? Why is the Windows download speed more than TWICE the speed of my linux installation thought it is on the same PC and each run was tested within minutes of one another? Why is the upload speed higher on the linux installation?

This is not a one-off, this is a consistent behavior, with very little standard deviation. And since I care a lot more about good download speed, I would like to get to the same result as on my Windows installation.

What can I do to improve that? I tried to search for the drivers in order to install manually, but there didn't seem anything arch specific.

EDIT: I wanted to add that I also tested the speed with my Pixel 7 phone on the same network, and got the same speeds as the windows installation, leading me to believe that there's something wrong with the linux config. Also `uname -r` = 6.0.6-arch1-1. I also wanna mention I went through everything on this post: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=272603 - installed iwd, etc, but adding the 11n disabled fix only made everything slow (down to ~15 Mbps).

Last edited by Monero (2022-11-01 19:14:46)

cfr · 2022-11-02 00:09:43

What are you using to manage your wifi?

find /etc/systemd/system -name '*.service'

Post your journal. (See link below if you want to use a pastebin service.)

journalctl -b --no-pager | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

Is Fast Boot disabled in Windows? As I understand it, you should check this even if you think it is as Windows has a tendency to keep re-enabling it. (I know zilch about Windows, but I've seen enough threads where this is a Thing to conclude it is probably a Thing.)

Monero · 2022-11-02 01:37:25

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I use NetworkManager with wpa_supplicant I believe. I tried iwd as well, but that made no difference really.

/etc/systemd/system/network-online.target.wants/NetworkManager-wait-online.service
/etc/systemd/system/printer.target.wants/cups.service
/etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/getty@tty1.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/firewalld.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/sshguard.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/sshd.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ntpd.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nxserver.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/NetworkManager.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nftables.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/cronie.service
/etc/systemd/system/default.target.wants/nordvpnd.service
/etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.fedoraproject.FirewallD1.service
/etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service
/etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service

Here's the journal: http://0x0.st/og-b.txt

Windows fast boot is off.

I researched a lot and my problem seems quite different from what most people with that wifi adapter seem to face. I have great connectivity, and get pretty good speeds at 150 Mbps, unlike most other posts where they frequently have less than 20 Mbps. However, I know that on Windows I get 300 Mps, so I'd really like to get to that.

EDIT: Just for the avoidance of doubt: NordVPN is not activated, and I tried `sudo systemctl stop nordvpnd.service && sudo systemctl disable nordvpnd.service" and tried a few speed tests again, and the result is the same ~150 Mbps as before.

Last edited by Monero (2022-11-02 01:43:52)

cfr · 2022-11-02 02:25:39

Do you have intel-ucode installed? Because it looks as if you are missing iwlwifi-cc-a0-72.ucode.

If it is installed, you don't seem to be loading it at boot. If you're booting a combined EFI image, check the firmware is being included. Otherwise, configure your command line so the firmware .img file gets loaded.

Last edited by cfr (2022-11-02 02:26:07)

d.ALT · 2022-11-02 08:36:18

Monero wrote:

Windows fast boot is off.

Any recent updates on Windows? If yes, please check Fast Boot 'cause it could be re-enabled.
Boot into Windows and run the command, shutdown, then boot into Arch:

>> Open COMMAND PROMPT with Elevated Privileges <<
powercfg /hibernate off

Last edited by d.ALT (2022-11-02 08:37:19)

czak · 2022-11-02 09:02:05

Are you using a dual-band router by any chance? I had low wifi speeds recently after replacing wifi card in my laptop. I thought the card was bad, but eventually I noticed that it seemed to stay on the 2.4GHz band.

My home router is dual-band, where both 2.4GHz and 5GHz use the same ESSID, only separate BSSIDs.

In netctl I added AP=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx of the 5GHz network so that it would use the 5GHz access point only. This has resolved my issue, I am now getting much better speeds (as good as can be expected given the walls in the house etc).

You can check which channel/frequency you are on with:

% iw dev wlp2s0 info | grep channel
        channel 44 (5220 MHz), width: 80 MHz, center1: 5210 MHz

Last edited by czak (2022-11-02 09:04:34)

Monero · 2022-11-02 18:04:05

Hi guys,

so I did not have "intel-ucode" installed, so I installed that via yay. Rebooting and that didn't change anything with regards to loading iwlwifi-cc-a0-72.ucode and still resulted in an error. I then did:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

according to the wiki, but that now resulted in GRUB seemingly being broken. After reboot, it just goes into my BIOS, and from there I can manually boot either into Windows (which is what I am on right now), or boot into GRUB, which simply results in a reboot into the BIOS.

That's pretty bad now. How can I fix that?

Awebb · 2022-11-02 18:08:59

https://archlinux.org/news/grub-bootloa … ibilities/

Always read the news.

Monero · 2022-11-02 18:15:28

ok.

And now that the damage is done, what are the steps to fix that?

Last edited by Monero (2022-11-02 18:15:38)

cfr · 2022-11-02 18:24:01

Monero wrote:

ok.
And now that the damage is done, what are the steps to fix that?

You need to boot the live Arch ISO, bring the network up, mount the file system (including your ESP), arch-chroot in and reinstall GRUB. It's similar to the procedure used when installing Arch.

EDIT: Follow the link from the news item to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Installation for more details.

Last edited by cfr (2022-11-02 18:25:52)

Scimmia · 2022-11-02 20:08:06

Too late now, but intel-ucode is just for CPU microcode, not for your wifi. The package you use there is linux-firmware, which you have as shown by the fact that it loaded cc-a0-71.ucode. It's not uncommon for the kernel to check for and fail to load a newer version that may not be publicly released.

Are you doing a full shutdown of Windows? Not a reboot and not the default hibernation-style shutdown?

Last edited by Scimmia (2022-11-02 20:14:34)

Monero · 2022-11-02 20:13:13

Ok for now I need to get GRUB back to working. I followed the installation guides, but short of entirely reinstalling Arch, I think I might be in a pickle. At some point I screwed up the EFI part and possibly deleted it, so now it looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/ELUIN1a.png

It's formatted as FAT32, but I think the relevant EFI files are missing - how can I install just these?

Scimmia · 2022-11-02 20:16:05

Where do you normally mount the ESP? Is it fstab?

seth · 2022-11-02 20:26:26

Edit:
=================== covered before by scimmia ============================
Ftr.
iwlwifi-cc-a0-72.ucode.xz would be part of linux-firmware, but is not.
No idea why, but you could get it from https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke … 0-72.ucode

However

Nov 01 21:29:50 local kernel: iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: loaded firmware version 71.058653f6.0 cc-a0-71.ucode op_mode iwlmvm

iwlwifi-cc-a0-71.ucode.xz is and is loaded (though iwlwifi-cc-a0-73 should™ be available as well?)

The CPU is

Nov 01 21:29:49 local kernel: smpboot: CPU0: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor (family: 0x17, model: 0x71, stepping: 0x0)

so intel-ucode is not a relevant package.

=================== /covered before by scimmia ============================

Nov 01 21:29:55 local wpa_supplicant[913]: wlp4s0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=0 signal=-72 noise=9999 txrate=29200
Nov 01 21:31:36 local wpa_supplicant[913]: wlp4s0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=0 signal=-72 noise=9999 txrate=432300

The signal there isn't exactly great.

Nov 01 21:29:55 local wpa_supplicant[913]: wlp4s0: SME: Trying to authenticate with 78:67:0e:5f:85:d9 (SSID='Casa Noble 5 GHz' freq=5720 MHz)
Nov 01 21:29:55 local wpa_supplicant[913]: wlp4s0: Trying to associate with 78:67:0e:5f:85:d9 (SSID='Casa Noble 5 GHz' freq=5720 MHz)

czak wrote:

Are you using a dual-band router by any chance?

because you might be better off w/ the 2.4GHz band, though

The OP wrote:

The WiFi router itself is not more than 10m away from me.

Is there anything inbetween? (10m air and 10m asbestos don't exactly have the same impact on the signal )
What's the signal strength and connection frequency on windows?

Also please post the output of

systool -vm iwlwifi

Finally:

Nov 01 21:29:57 local systemd[1]: Started NordVPN Daemon.

How exactly are you measuring the up/downstream thoughput? You're not testing against a WAN host while using a VPN, are you?

Last edited by seth (2022-11-02 20:29:06)

Monero · 2022-11-02 20:27:19

Scimmia wrote:

Where do you normally mount the ESP? Is it fstab?

In /mnt/etc/fstab I see that it was using the right partition nvme0n1p5 mounted to /boot

However, I checked the other mount points and they don't seem to match anymore. Like /dev/sdc seems to have moved to /dev/sdb and so on.

I am not sure, is that what you mean? I made sure that /mnt and /boot are the correct mount points

right now I cannot proceed because "/boot does not look like an EFI partition" - how can I make it recognize it as EFI partition? where do I get the EFI specific files from?

Last edited by Monero (2022-11-02 20:29:11)

Scimmia · 2022-11-02 20:31:40

You mounted it to /boot of the ISO, you needed to mount it to the boot for inside the root partition. Since you mounted that to /mnt, the ESP would be /mnt/boot.

BUT, you have files in there that wouldn't be there if you normally mount the ESP there. Something doesn't add up, which is why I asked about fstab.

Last edited by Scimmia (2022-11-02 20:32:37)

Monero · 2022-11-02 20:39:14

Oh boy I'm a muppet! You were right, I mounted it to the /boot of the iso! With that I was able to do the grub install and boot back into arch! Thanks! Yes, it's a clusterfuck in my /boot folder at the moment, but for now I probably shouldn't touch it

I now gonna look into the other answers with regards to the wifi problem - just wanted to give an interim update

Monero · 2022-11-02 21:05:26

Thank you all for the replies, I appreciate the help.

seth wrote:

No idea why, but you could get it from https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke … 0-72.ucode

Ok, so doing a `locate` on iwlwifi I can see that I actually have a newer version (v 73)?

/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-46.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-48.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-50.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-53.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-55.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-59.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-62.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-63.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-66.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-67.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-68.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-71.ucode.xz
/usr/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-cc-a0-73.ucode.xz

I can download v72 and put it into the folder manually, but I am not sure if this is the right thing to do? Shouldn't it just load v73 automatically?

seth wrote:

The CPU is

Nov 01 21:29:49 local kernel: smpboot: CPU0: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor (family: 0x17, model: 0x71, stepping: 0x0)

so intel-ucode is not a relevant package.

Ok, so can I just remove intel-ucode again? I assume I have to do grub-mkconfig and can skip grub-install this time (since it should already be on a new version)?

seth wrote:

The signal there isn't exactly great.

Yes I agree, the signal sucks. It's weird too, because I have a (smallish) antenna for the motherboard, and I got it just barely over 1 year ago when it was relatively new. My Surface Pro laptop has great signal in comparison and gets like 600 Mbits on the 5G network in the same spot as my main PC. This compares to my main PC getting 300 Mbits on Windows and 150 on Linux. It's all a bit strange. Maybe there's an easy way to upgrade this with a small dongle or something? If you have a recommendation I'd love to hear it - I've been burned before with products that are not linux compatible at all.

czak wrote:

Are you using a dual-band router by any chance?

Yes, the router is capable of 2.4G, 5G and 6E, all 3 of which I am running under separate names. For the test, however, I am only connecting to the 5G network.

seth wrote:

Is there anything inbetween? (10m air and 10m asbestos don't exactly have the same impact on the signal ) What's the signal strength and connection frequency on windows?

Yes, there's a wall inbetween, but it's not crazy thick. The issue is that on Windows the same PC has better speed than linux. I can check the frequency on windows after I post this.

seth wrote:

Also please post the output of
systool -vm iwlwifi

Here:

Module = "iwlwifi"

  Attributes:
    coresize            = "491520"
    initsize            = "0"
    initstate           = "live"
    refcnt              = "1"
    srcversion          = "9CD80B126242D88084FF72D"
    taint               = ""
    uevent              = <store method only>

  Parameters:
    11n_disable         = "0"
    amsdu_size          = "0"
    bt_coex_active      = "Y"
    debug               = "0"
    disable_11ac        = "N"
    disable_11ax        = "N"
    fw_restart          = "Y"
    led_mode            = "0"
    nvm_file            = "(null)"
    power_level         = "0"
    power_save          = "N"
    remove_when_gone    = "N"
    swcrypto            = "0"
    uapsd_disable       = "3"

  Sections:

I should not that I tried setting 11n_disable to 1 via /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf:

options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1 swcrypto=1

but that made it much worse. Speed went from 150 Mbits to 20 Mbits. Neither did setting power_save to 0 help.

seth wrote:

How exactly are you measuring the up/downstream thoughput?

I am using both speedtest.net (website as well as command line on linux) and the google speed test when you type "speed test" into google. Both are fairly close to one another. Windows usually gets to ~300 Mbits, and Linux hovers around 150 Mbits.

seth wrote:

You're not testing against a WAN host while using a VPN, are you?

No, I tripple checked that NordVPN is off, and even disabled the services previously with no visible difference.

Scimmia wrote:

Are you doing a full shutdown of Windows? Not a reboot and not the default hibernation-style shutdown?

Yes, I am doing a full shutdown of windows. Hibernation is disabled. I also did the cmd line disabling of hibernation as suggested in another post.

Last edited by Monero (2022-11-02 21:07:50)

seth · 2022-11-02 21:15:38

Shouldn't it just load v73 automatically?

No, but a future kernel will likely try that version as well.
I don't know why the 72 version isn't shipped. You can place it there and if things fall apart w/ the firmware, remove it again.

but that made it much worse. Speed went from 150 Mbits to 20 Mbits.

That's expectable because w/ 5GHz you'll fall back to 802.11a (disabling n implies disabling ac as well)

cfr · 2022-11-03 01:18:35

Monero wrote:

Ok, so can I just remove intel-ucode again? I assume I have to do grub-mkconfig and can skip grub-install this time (since it should already be on a new version)?

Yes. That was entirely my fault, so my apologies.

In the journal you posted, NordVPN definitely looks active. Do you mean you stopped and disabled it after that?

Last edited by cfr (2022-11-03 01:24:59)

Monero · 2022-11-03 16:03:01

cfr wrote:

In the journal you posted, NordVPN definitely looks active. Do you mean you stopped and disabled it after that?

The daemon is active, that doesn't mean the traffic is routed. That being said, for the avoidance of doubt I uninstalled it completely now and the result is the same unfortunately.

seth · 2022-11-03 16:20:10

Did you meanwhile check whether windows is on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band or maybe bonding?

Monero · 2022-11-04 17:39:49

seth wrote:

Did you meanwhile check whether windows is on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band or maybe bonding?

Yes, just confirmed that Windows is on the 5G network only. Just like Linux.

seth · 2022-11-04 21:14:56

Try wether "bt_coex_active=0" has any impact (but for 5GHz I don't expect so)
Then either of (not all together!) "disable_11ax=true", "disable_11ac=true" or "11n_disable=4"

Monero · 2022-11-11 17:03:39

Unfortunately none of these had any (positive) impact.

However, I tried something new: Since the 5g wifi signal was so crappy to begin with, I ended up switching the Verizon router to a TP-Link Deco AXE5400 Tri-Band WiFi 6E Mesh System (Deco XE75) and used 2 mesh-points in total (they use 6E as backbone, so signal inference should be lower between rooms). Doing this I now get 500 mbits down and 200 mbits up on my Linux PC (on 5Ghz!). Tested on Windows and get the same 500 / 200 there as well (on 5Ghz)!

So I think somehow this boils down to Windows being much better at working with weak (5 Ghz) signals than the linux drivers. For now this is acceptable to me, but this seems like something that should be fixed in the linux drivers themselves.

Anywho, thanks for all the suggestions, and I'm glad I got a work-around now.

Last edited by Monero (2022-11-11 17:07:13)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-11-01 18:03:24

WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#2 2022-11-02 00:09:43

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#3 2022-11-02 01:37:25

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#4 2022-11-02 02:25:39

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#5 2022-11-02 08:36:18

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#6 2022-11-02 09:02:05

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#7 2022-11-02 18:04:05

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#8 2022-11-02 18:08:59

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#9 2022-11-02 18:15:28

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#10 2022-11-02 18:24:01

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#11 2022-11-02 20:08:06

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#12 2022-11-02 20:13:13

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#13 2022-11-02 20:16:05

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#14 2022-11-02 20:26:26

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#15 2022-11-02 20:27:19

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#16 2022-11-02 20:31:40

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#17 2022-11-02 20:39:14

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#18 2022-11-02 21:05:26

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#19 2022-11-02 21:15:38

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#20 2022-11-03 01:18:35

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#21 2022-11-03 16:03:01

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#22 2022-11-03 16:20:10

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#23 2022-11-04 17:39:49

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#24 2022-11-04 21:14:56

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

#25 2022-11-11 17:03:39

Re: WiFi on Arch is half the speed as on Windows

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