Arch Linux

Yxuer

Member

Registered: 2025-06-12

Posts: 1

MSI PRO B650-S WIFI -- Wireless authentication issues

Good day! Arch newbie here!

I have recently bought a PC with a MSI PRO B650-S WIFI, but, as the title suggests, I'm having trouble when authenticating to a weak WiFi.

I have done some tests, including using my phone as a hotspot, and physically moving my PC in front of the router, and in these two cases, I can connect without any trouble. But from where I usually am in my room (the router is about 7 meters away, with some walls in between), both NetworkManager and iwctl fail to authenticate. I am using dual boot with Windows 11, and it has no trobule connecting to my WiFi (although it is slow).

For reference, lspci reports that the wireless driver is mt7921e. Besides this, I have tried multiple stuff I have seen on the forums, such as increasing the tx power of the card to 20dBm, but it seems to always show 3 dBm (somebody said this could be a visual bug though?). I also tried disabling mac randomization and power saving, to no avail either.

I also checked my system logs, and I can confirm it is an authentication time-out issue. As I don't have my PC with me right now, I'm copy-pasting from this other post the kinds of messages that I recall getting:

send auth to 10:c3:ab:53:31:60 (try 1/3)
send auth to 10:c3:ab:53:31:60 (try 2/3)
send auth to 10:c3:ab:53:31:60 (try 3/3)
authentication with 10:c3:ab:53:31:60 timed out

So, at this point, I'm not sure what to try. As a last resort, I'll ask to have ethernet outlets installed in my house, or I'll move the router closer to the computer, or use a PLC. But I'd like to know if there is something else I could try. Can I perhaps use a wireless driver other than mt7921e? Or perhaps using a different linux kernel?

Thanks for the advice