3

It seems to run well for about 20 seconds, especially after freshly reconnecting. After those 20 seconds are up, it ceases all incoming and outgoing network activity for about two minutes.

This is a fresh install, so there's no chance that something tampered with it to cause any instability. I'm running LMDE Betsy with Cinnamon (downloaded from the site a couple days ago) using the 3.16.0-4-amd64 kernel (now updated to 4.1.0-2-amd64). My WiFi card is a TP-Link TL-WN951N v1 (chipset: AR5416). I'm using a 2.4 GHz 802.11g/n connection with WPA2-AES security.

Here are the details from mintwifi. There was a warning about /etc/resolv.conf not being symlinked to /etc/resolvconf/run/resolv.conf so I deleted the former and symlinked it to the latter.

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Qualcomm Atheros AR5416 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn] (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 168c:0023 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"wowsuchwifi" 
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 90:0D:CB:FF:F1:A0   
          Bit Rate=130 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-36 dBm 
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:1  Invalid misc:26   Missed beacon:0

lo        no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 50:e5:49:c7:f0:88 
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:3857 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3857 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:338937 (330.9 KiB)  TX bytes:338937 (330.9 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 90:f6:52:36:37:40 
          inet addr:10.0.0.7  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:78583 errors:0 dropped:444 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:53622 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:77504584 (73.9 MiB)  TX bytes:6780983 (6.4 MiB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
Reloading /etc/samba/smb.conf: smbd.
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server:      75.75.75.75
Address:   75.75.75.75#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   google.com
Address: 216.58.217.142

Things I've tried so far:

  • Checked various files in /var/log to see if anything fishy came up
  • Disabled IPv6 since apparently support for it isn't up to snuff yet
  • Given it a static IP address (both on the machine and in the router, for posterity)
  • Set the DNS to 8.8.8.8 with mixed results (sometimes I would get 404s, and it still didn't help with the delays)
  • Disabled the security (router wouldn't let me use a lesser protocol like WEP); enabled when it didn't help with the delays
  • Ensured that ath9k drivers are enabled
  • Updated the kernel to 4.1.0-2-amd64
  • Set US to the value in /etc/default/crda
  • Pushed en-/decryption from the hardware to the software

So far, no dice. The connection doesn't "drop" exactly, it just makes my machine look really lazy by keeping a 0b/s "speed" both in and out. Nothing shows up in any logs that I've found.

I'm stuck and really don't want to have to uninstall it again. What can I do?

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  • Does this problem exist on another device?
    – N. Greene
    Sep 8, 2015 at 19:59
  • Do you mean another adapter, router, computer, etc.? I don't possess any other hardware on which I can test for this issue, and I'm not in the financial position to acquire more. Sep 8, 2015 at 20:08
  • Should have been more clear, but do you have any device (Computer/Smartphone/Game Console) with wifi connection that you can try?
    – N. Greene
    Sep 8, 2015 at 20:20
  • This machine had Windows 7 and now has Windows 10 on another HDD, both of which connect perfectly fine. Guests have had no issues connecting, either, whether they were using laptops or smaller mobile devices. Sep 9, 2015 at 14:56
  • Sorry, I can't be much more help. I'm not a Linux guy. Is there a different driver version you can try? Since it worked fine on Windows7/10 and guests have no problem, seems to be something software/driver related.
    – N. Greene
    Sep 9, 2015 at 17:48

2 Answers 2

1

I was also using LMDE 2 (Betsy) on my desktop computer with a TP-Link wireless network card, the basic model under the one you're using. TP-Link cards are reputed to be Linux-friendly because of the Atheros chipset. However, I started experiencing similar problems. I have a few suggestions/comments based on my troubleshooting with that card. Hopefully these will help.

Packet Loss: When booting LMDE2, the computer would recognize the network SSID and attempt to connect. Typically it would connect automatically and report full signal strength. However, when pinging localhost (192.168.1.1) there would either be significant latency and/or packet loss. This is a simple step, but I recommend testing the latency and/or drop between your computer and the gateway with ping and traceroute, as well as a basic public DNS such as 8.8.8.8. If you have a smartphone, tablet or similar device, you can use ping and even SSH to check connections between your devices. There is some info on how to do this on Android right here on superuser.

Physical Adjustment: The TP-Link wireless network adapter has two or more antennas on the back. I found that these were extremely sensitive and must be angled just right to get a reliable connection. Test your connection while adjusting the antennae in a dozen different positions, and see if this changes the frequency of your connection drops.

Physical Proximity: This may seem like common sense, but if at all possible, get the computer as close as possible to the wireless access point. Especially because you are not using a 5ghz wireless router, it's easy to get signal interference.

Apt: Debian 8 (Jessie) is getting a lot of updates. I get alerts every day on LMDE2 for my laptop. Make sure to use Synaptic or apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade so everything plays nicely together.

I resolved my issue with the TP-Link card by plugging in the nano WIFI adapter from a Raspberry Pi and testing against it. You can find one for less than $10. I realize you don't want to get new hardware, and that the card seems to work in Windows without issue, but there seems to be a recurring hardware issue with some of the basic TP-Link cards.

0

This is a known problem. However it is very old (all references I could dig up go back to 2010/2011) so I am a bit surprised you still have it. The problem lies surely with your driver, ath9k, which is however a good driver. By updating the kernel, you need not have loaded the most recent version of the driver, so I suggest you try the following suggestions.

  1. It is stated in many places (see here for example) that the card does not work well with 802.11n, but works fine with 802.11g. To test this, you will have to change settings in your router, not on your pc. Somewhere in your Configuration GUI you will have a setting like 802.11n only, 802.11g only, mixed: select 802.11g, reboot the router, reboot your pc, try it.

  2. Try loading the module ath9k with the optional parameters set and unset. You find the optional parameters at the end of the output of

    modinfo ath9k
    

To test one such parameter, for instance btcoex_enable, do as follows:

    rmmod ath9k
    modprobe ath9k btcoex_enable=0

Now try the wifi, if it does not work as you would like it to, try:

    rmmod ath9k
    modprobe ath9k btcoex_enable=1

And so on.

  1. Download the latest version of the driver from the backports, here: choose a stable version, then follow the instructions in the README file.

  2. In the first Web page referenced above, someone says that switching from Network Manager to wicd solved his/her problem. This is most mysterious to me, because I would expect matters concerning drivers to be well-separated from the tedious wirk of setting up the sotware part of a wifi connection. But, when all else fails it may be because we do not understand it so, short of a trip to Lourdes, you may even try this.

1
  • The router provided by the ISP only supports g/n and b/g/n. Ugh. Sep 26, 2015 at 17:36

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