<SOLVED> WIFI Connection Drops Constantly

[stratplaya]

I'm really liking the Linux mint OS but I use my laptop for work and without reliable wireless I'll have to use another OS. The wifi works, I'm connected to my home network as I type this, but it drops a connection every few minutes and almost immediately reconnects. A strong annoyance when browsing the web but where work is concerned its renders the laptop worthless. Every little disconnect no matter how long it last cause me to have to reconnect to VPN connections, RDP/SSH sessions, IM messaging clients, and web based conference calls.

The laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad W510. let me know what other information and command output would be helpful. The output of mintwifi is:

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 35)
==> PCI ID = 8086:4238 (rev 35)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

vmnet8 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11abg ESSID:"MyNetwork"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.422 GHz Access Point: 00:23:69:7E:E6:AF
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=66/70 Signal level=-44 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:91 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

vmnet1 no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:2d:f0:f9:8f
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)
Interrupt:20 Memory:f2600000-f2620000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2116 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2116 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:175808 (175.8 KB) TX bytes:175808 (175.8 KB)

vmnet1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:56:c0:00:01
inet addr:192.168.196.1 Bcast:192.168.196.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:56ff:fec0:1/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:188 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

vmnet8 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:56:c0:00:08
inet addr:192.168.141.1 Bcast:192.168.141.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:56ff:fec0:8/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2699 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:191 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:d7:09:d9:34
inet addr:192.168.1.145 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: 2002:18fe:a757:0:224:d7ff:fe09:d934/64 Scope:Global
inet6 addr: fe80::224:d7ff:fe09:d934/64 Scope:Link
inet6 addr: 2002:18fe:a757:0:67:7cc9:64f9:3fb1/64 Scope:Global
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:329795 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:204186 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:388655036 (388.6 MB) TX bytes:22283546 (22.2 MB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 68.105.28.12
Address: 68.105.28.12#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.230
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.231
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.232
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.233
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.238
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.224
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.225
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.226
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.227
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.228
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.224.229

[vpatron]

I have the same exact problem but with my Lenovo T400 laptop. It works fine at home (on 802.11g) but drops constantly at work (I assume it is 802.11n).

Dual booting into Windows XP, my system works perfectly. I sorely would prefer to use Linux Mint as I have VPN working, and Remmina remote desktop works awesome!

When i do "lspci | grep -i wireless", I see that the wifi HW is:
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

-Vince

[vpatron]

Oh, I found this post that says that driver is broken for wireless N, and has instructions on how to disable it. I will try this out at work tomorrow.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1980142

-Vince

[vpatron]

Ok, so disabling wireless N seemed to make it work fine. 45 minutes with no disconnect on VPN at work. (Would have disconnected within minutes before.)

From http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1980142

The driver iwlwifi got a bug with the N-mode, deactivate it via:

Code: Select all

echo "options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf
sudo modprobe -rfv iwlwifi
sudo modprobe -v iwlwifi


[stratplaya]

That's great news! I'm on my home now and will try this out asap. If I get the same results ill mark as solved. Thanks!

[stratplaya]

Worked for me too! Been playing around on the laptop for a few hours now and not one dropped connection. Thanks so much for the quick replies and for making my laptop reliable!

[Emmett]

I've been searching for a solution to this bug for some months. Glad to see somebody holding out a ray of hope here; but if I'm disabling the N, will I be out of luck with the new router that I hear Santa is bringing me? Or is there an N workaround?