Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

kidawesome · 2009-01-21 22:03:44

It seems that b43 (or something) can't maintain a consistent bit rate. Using windows it will maintain between 48-54Mb/s (expected at 802.11g), when i boot into arch it seems to drop down to 1Mb/s quite frequently, almost dropping my connecting (in some cases needing a reboot to get a connect back). I switched from dhcpcd to dhclient (it seems a bit better). Am i missing any good tweaks?

I don't know exactly what log/output to post since it connects without error. The strange thing is that last week it was much more consistent, i needed to format to change my partitioning scheme, and i'm now faced with this.

iwconfig tells me that my link quality is 80/100 Signal level: -64dBm Noise level=-59dBm

capnfabs · 2009-02-23 07:28:24

i'm having a similar problem; one solution (for me, depends on your chipset) is to get the broadcom-wl driver instead (from the AUR). Works heaps better, the only problem I'm having with it is that for some reason it can't get an IP address with Wicd and so i have to manually configure it a bit.

no dropouts though

arew264 · 2009-02-23 22:27:06

I'm running b43 with a BCM4318, and while my wireless works fine, I'm building the latest wireless-compat (which is the latest wireless drivers from the kernel tree) to get some extra functionality. If it works, would you like me to post my PKGBUILD? The one in the AUR is out of date.

Last edited by arew264 (2009-02-23 22:27:38)

thelucster · 2009-02-25 17:05:52

I am running a BCM4306 (rev3) on x86_64 but am having some issues getting it to work. I have loaded the iee80211_crypt_tkip and wl modules as stated in the readme, however I have no wlan0 device show up? dmesg isn't particularly helpful either...

dmesg wrote:

iee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'TKIP'
wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietry' taints kernel.

Also back to the original issue, with the b43 driver, I can manually set my rate to 11M, which although better than 1M is not perfect...

iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M

playingdoh · 2009-02-25 17:48:21

this might be too simple of an answer but i had the same problem with my bcm4311 rev02 using b43 and wl (not at the same time) and i dont have windows installed on anything to test it, but after a lot of trial an error and a few reinstalls i found the problem was my router was on channel 11 and i live in an apartment building where almost every other router (there is 16+) was on channel 1, 6 or 11 (the defaults). i changed mine to channel 8 and never had a problem since (except my Nintendo wii only works on channel 1 and 11). i guess it was just interference. not a technical answer but easy to test.

R00KIE · 2009-02-26 09:05:29

The bitrate drop might not be a big issue. The ath5k driver does the same (it has to do with with the pid control they implemented) and when needed it goes up and this doesn't influence the connection (download) speeds as far as I can see.

thelucster · 2009-02-26 09:42:32

playingdoh: It is definitely a driver issue as it works fine in Windows and on my laptop.

R00KIE: I think you may be right actually, last night I was getting confused with my rather poor internet connection not working (Virgin Media in the UK...) and my wireless not working. I'll see how things go as I'll be turning this machine into a fileserver.

thelucster · 2009-03-02 09:41:07

Just an update, I have done some tests with SCP and the bitrate does make a difference. When it is set to 54M I get 1.2 megabytes/s (10mbit) - this is however with both machines connected via wifi (however reporting the full signal), so I'll try with one connected via ethernet to see if that makes any difference.

When doing transfers between two machines over wifi should I be able to get the full 54mbit/s, or will it be lower?

arew264 · 2009-03-02 13:36:01

No, you will never get the full 54 mbit/s. Even sitting next to the router, you'll be lucky to get close.
That number is a theoretical maximum transfer rate, so if the world were perfect and network packets didn't have headers that took up space, you would get it.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-21 22:03:44

Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#2 2009-02-23 07:28:24

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#3 2009-02-23 22:27:06

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#4 2009-02-25 17:05:52

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#5 2009-02-25 17:48:21

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#6 2009-02-26 09:05:29

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#7 2009-02-26 09:42:32

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#8 2009-03-02 09:41:07

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

#9 2009-03-02 13:36:01

Re: Uber Flakey Wireless (b43, bcm4306)

Board footer