Linux Mint- Have to constantly reset my internet to work?

Question

I bought this ASUS desktop recently and dual-booted it with Windows and Linux Mint. It comes with an antenna for WiFi.

However, on Linux Mint my home network connection keeps dropping and it disconnects at random moments (every 5-10 minutes). I have to run these commands whenever it happens to restart the wlan. I even put it in a shell script, but it is annoying I have to do this. How do I fix this specific driver?

sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

Answer 1

For people still googling this in the future (like me)

I had the same problem with a Realtek RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (from the tty output of lspci)

I created a script to run every 5mins which checks if it's working and if not - resets it automatically.

Here's the script (requires wget and NetworkManager):

#!/bin/bash

# Use wget to get the status of connection
wget -q --spider http://google.com > /dev/null

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   STATUS="Online"
else
   STATUS="Offline" 
fi

# Use NetworkManager (via nmcli) to reboot the wifi if necessary
 
if [ $STATUS =  "Online" ]; then
    echo "$(date +%r\ %a\ %d\ %b) : WiFi check OK" >> /full/path/to/your/textlog
    echo >> /full/path/to/your/textlog
    exit    
else
    echo "$(date +%r\ %a\ %d\ %b) : WiFi check BAD" >> /full/path/to/your/textlog
    nmcli radio wifi off > /dev/null 
    nmcli radio wifi on > /dev/null
    echo "$(date +%r\ %a\ %d\ %b) : Restarting..." >> /full/path/to/your/textlog
    sleep 3
    nmcli dev wifi connect "Galaxy A12E23D" > /dev/null
    echo "$(date +%r\ %a\ %d\ %b) : Back online!" >> /full/path/to/your/textlog
    echo >> /full/path/to/your/textlog
fi

Save in your favorite scripts folder and then to have it run every 5mins, you edit the crontab file as root (cron is the linux scheduling program). In the terminal login as root:

sudo -i

Then:

crontab -e

And add the following line to the file that opens:

*/5 * * * * /path/to/your/script.sh

Save and exit and you're done.

logout

I'm sure there's some way to treat the cause instead of the symptom, but you don't even notice this going on in the background. It's just an easy workaround.

If you found this on google because your RTL8191SE doesn't work at all, it could very well be that you're using a non-proprietary kernel which doesn't have drivers for your card. Have a noodle around and you should be able to find a release of your distro that includes proprietary drivers in the kernel. Then come back here to fix the above problem.

I hope this helps somebody.