Problem with WiFi driver in arch linux

Hi everyone

I’ve been trying to solve a problem with my arch (endeavour) instalation and wanted to know if anyone here can help

Everything is working well, excepting the WiFi connection. It is extremely slow, sometimes disconnecting from the network, and in the task bar, the WiFi icon shows that the signal strength is weak, although the router is in the same room. Switching between r8168 and r8169 as recommended doesnt work. Any ideas?

@linux

    • Nicolas Rojas@social.vivaldi.netOP
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      9 months ago

      01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 8265 / 8275 [8086:24fd] (rev 78)
      02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 15)
      Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [1043:200f]

      • Rustmilian@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I did some digging.
        Check if iwlwifi kernel module is loaded with
        lsmod | grep iwlwifi
        If not sudo modprobe iwlwifi
        Then in /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf add

        options iwlwifi swcrypto=1 11n_disable=1
        

        And reboot, check if the problem is still persistent. If it is let me know, as there’s a few more things we can try like disabling power management.

        • Nicolas Rojas@social.vivaldi.netOP
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          9 months ago

          @Rustmilian @linux Thank you for your help! I did what you suggested and it fixed about 80% of the problem. I no longer randomly disconnect from the network and it is way faster than before, although download speed is still 8x slower than it was last week when I had fedora running instead of arch. I think I’m going to try more values for the 11n_disable parameter (there is no power management to disable), but even if it doesnt improve my machine is at least usable now. Thanks!

          • Rustmilian@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I’m glad to hear that worked.
            I suggest trying sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off this temporarily disables the wireless card’s power saving features.
            Then check if the speed has improved, if not, skip the following.
            If it has improved make the change permanent by adding the following to file /etc/pm/power.d/disable-wireless-power-management :

            #!/bin/bash
            /sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power off
            

            Then run sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/power.d/disable-wireless-power-management

            I assume the linux-firmware package is already installed, but double check if you’re not sure. It provides iwlwifi-8265-36.ucode in /usr/lib/firmware/ which I believe is your cards specific iwlwifi driver. Intel Wireless Firmware Page is the source that made me think to check.

  • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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    9 months ago

    I had the same problem with mint, the wifi worked on other distros but not in mint, I run the next lines to fix it

    sudo modprove -r rtl8723be
    sudo modprove rtl8723be ant_sel=1
    

    rtl8723be is my wifi card, you can try to use the same but with yours.

      • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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        9 months ago

        Sorry it didn’t worked. Mine have the problem, it’s recognize that have a wifi connection and the available networks, but with a really weak signal.The problem with my router is that it has two antennas, for some reason sometimes the second one, who doesn’t work on mint, get selected but I run that lines and work again. The first line is for reseting the router, the second is for turning out again with antenna 1 selected.

  • Link@rentadrunk.org
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    9 months ago

    Ah yes. I had the same issue. The realtek drivers for Wi-Fi suck on Linux. I never managed to solve it and in the end I bought an Intel AX200 and never had any more issues.

    If you have to option to switch to an Intel Wi-Fi card I would highly recommend it.

      • Link@rentadrunk.org
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        9 months ago

        You can try the LTS kernel if that is available on your distro but honestly Intel Wi-Fi cards are the way to go on Linux. I wouldn’t buy anything else!

        Also I’m not sure you can @ someone that way.

        • Nicolas Rojas@social.vivaldi.netOP
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          9 months ago

          @Link @linux Yeah the kernel changes nothing, I might have to change to intel because I dont know what else to do at software level
          About the @ , I’m using my mastodon account to write all these posts and they are added automatically. Besides thats the best way for the posts I write in mastodon to appear as comments in lemmy clients. If they look weird to you it might be activitypub compatibility bugs but nothing too important :)

    • Nicolas Rojas@social.vivaldi.netOP
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      9 months ago

      @Kalcifer @linux
      [ 5.010372] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
      [ 5.108148] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: Detected crf-id 0xbadcafe, cnv-id 0x10 wfpm id 0x80000000
      [ 5.108171] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: PCI dev 24fd/0110, rev=0x230, rfid=0xd55555d5
      [ 5.137796] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: loaded firmware version 36.ca7b901d.0 8265-36.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
      [ 5.556122] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: Detected Intel® Dual Band Wireless AC 8265, REV=0x230
      [ 5.614915] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: base HW address: 60:f6:77:eb:1e:6e, OTP minor version: 0x0
      [ 5.689840] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: iwlmvm doesn’t allow to disable HW crypto, check swcrypto module parameter
      [ 13.355547] iwlwifi 0000:01:00.0: Registered PHC clock: iwlwifi-PTP, with index: 0