weird WiFi card behaviour

[alangauld]

I just fitted a new PCIe WiFi card and am getting some odd results.
The card is seen in Network Manager and it sees the 2..4GHz band login from my router. But it won't connect.

If I switch my phone to be a hotspot it is seen and I can connect and get BW of 30Mb on speedtest.net. (which is what I'm using to post this)

If I try my router's 5GHz band it tries to login but does not connect.

But using my USB WiFi adapter I can connect to both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands OK (just with very poor speeds - around 3-8Mb)

So the router should be OK because it works with the USB adapter(or am I missing something there?)
and because the card works on hotspot it seems to be OK.

I'm stumped for ideas.

The WiFi card is described on Amazon as:
"CSL - WLAN Network card - 2,4 Ghz and 5 Ghz for PCIe – PCI Express Adapter - 2 external 5dbi antennas
– WIFI 5 – 1200 Mbit – WEP WPA and WPA2– MIMO - compatible with Windows 8 8.1 10 "
Chipset is: Realtek RTL8812AE
And I confirmed from a buyer that it works on Linux Ubuntu - so I thought Mint should be OK (and it is via phone).

Linux Mint 20.2
Cinnamon 5.0.7
Kernel 5.4.0-92
AMD Athlon II X4 640 CPU, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 1TB HDD

PS. I'm also having major issues with my ethernet connection, it keeps dropping out, hence the drive to get wiFi sorted!

[HAWR]

Hello alangauld,

please show the output of the following terminal commands, because it's easier for support with the exact informations of your hardware:

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lspci -nnk | grep -i net -A3

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iwconfig

[alangauld]

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$ lspci -nnk | grep -i net -A3
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8812] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8812]
	Kernel driver in use: rtl8821ae
	Kernel modules: rtl8821ae
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [1462:7596]
	Kernel driver in use: r8168
	Kernel modules: r8168
04:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: LSI Corporation FW322/323 [TrueFire] 1394a Controller [11c1:5811] (rev 04)

$ iwconfig
wlp2s0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"Huawei P smart 2019"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: A4:9B:4F:87:85:41   
          Bit Rate=300 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=40/70  Signal level=-70 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:17575   Missed beacon:0

virbr0-nic  no wireless extensions.

virbr0    no wireless extensions.

enp3s0    no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

Just for comparison, here is the USB output:

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$ iwconfig
wlp2s0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"PLUSNET-K3HHMG"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 98:AA:FC:32:A2:7F   
          Bit Rate=144.4 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=26/70  Signal level=-84 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:52   Missed beacon:0

And the non-working PCIe card:

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wlxb44bd62c2758  IEEE 802.11AC  ESSID:"PLUSNET-5G"  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.24 GHz  Access Point: B8:D9:4D:57:DA:75   
          Bit Rate:434 Mb/s   Sensitivity:0/0  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=33/100  Signal level=-80 dBm  Noise level=0 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

[HAWR]

Hello alangauld,

your wifi card uses the right kernel driver

Kernel driver in use: rtl8821ae

and the power management of the wifi card is off, which is okay, because enabled power management often causes problems. I see, that the link qualities/signal strengths for the USB and PCI card are not the best. Is the router in the same room? Are there many wifi networks around you? Until now, I have no idea and have to think about it.

PS. I'm also having major issues with my ethernet connection, it keeps dropping out, hence the drive to get wiFi sorted!

For your ethernet I notice something strange:

Kernel driver in use: r8168

As far as I know, the driver r8168 is not the kernel driver, which should be in use. Your ethernet is supported by the r8169 kernel driver. Where did you got the r8168 from?

[alangauld]

@HAWR: the driver r8168 is not the kernel driver, which should be in use. Your ethernet is supported by the r8169 kernel driver. Where did you got the r8168 from?

The 8168 driver was an attempt to fix the ethernet. A forum post on Linux answers suggested the 8169 could be flaky with old cards so I got the latest 8168 driver code from Realtek (June 2021 build) and installed it. It worked for 2 days then died again
I've been using Linux since 1994 and never had networking issues, but this is driving me mad! It's been happening for over 2 years now and is getting worse.

[HAWR]

Okay, then I understand your frustration with the ethernet. Here is someone with the same problem and he claims, he has no such problems trying Debian Buster. Maybe you could try the live system of LMDE 4, which is based on Debian Buster?

https://itectec.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-realt ... er-rev-0c/

https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=279

But we should focus on wifi. Above I wrote

I see, that the link qualities/signal strengths for the USB and PCI card are not the best. Is the router in the same room? Are there many wifi networks around you?

And I suggest to concentrate on 2.4GHz first. Please show the output of (fullscreen mode in terminal)

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nmcli device wifi list

[alangauld]

The router is in the adjacent room(where the TV is) about 30 feet(10m) from the PC.
As for other networks, I can see 3-5 other networks, presumably my neighbours.
However, I live in a detached house and none of them have very powerful signals.

Here is the output of the nmcli command:

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$ nmcli device wifi list
IN-USE  BSSID              SSID                 MODE   CHAN  RATE        SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY  
*       B8:D9:4D:57:DA:75  PLUSNET-5G           Infra  48    405 Mbit/s  39      ▂▄__  WPA2      
        98:AA:FC:32:A2:7F  PLUSNET-K3HHMG       Infra  11    270 Mbit/s  37      ▂▄__  WPA2      
        B8:D9:4D:57:DA:74  PLUSNET-K3HHMG       Infra  11    130 Mbit/s  34      ▂▄__  WPA2      
        90:4D:4A:26:E0:9A  BTHub6-SCQ7          Infra  11    195 Mbit/s  32      ▂▄__  WPA2      
        4C:09:D4:65:11:D7  EE-BrightBox-rmjgks  Infra  8     130 Mbit/s  30      ▂___  WPA1 WPA2 

IN-USE  BSSID              SSID            MODE   CHAN  RATE        SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY 
        98:AA:FC:32:A2:7F  PLUSNET-K3HHMG  Infra  11    270 Mbit/s  27      ▂___  WPA2     

I confess, it's a new one on me so I've no idea what it's telling me!

[alangauld]

Status update:
I currently am getting full speed on my USB adapter on the 5GHz band. I'm still only getting 70Mb on the 2.4G band.
I checked the router and it's set to 802.11 b/g/n (up to 300Mbps)
I set the channel from auto to 2 (since I noticed some of the neighbour networks are also using 11)

[One slightly odd thing is that with the PCIe card plugged in the USB adapter is getting about double its normal signal strength. I'm not sure why.]

The PCIe adapter is still completely unable to connect to either the 5G or 2.4G bands on the router.
But it can connect to my phone used as a hotspot.

Ethernet is still broken but I'll deal with it separately.

[HAWR]

Hello alangauld,

In between a little tip: For a better readability of the terminal outputs for all users use the </> button above the text field, so it looks like this:

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$ lspci -nnk | grep -i net -A3
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8812] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8812]
Kernel driver in use: rtl8821ae
Kernel modules: rtl8821ae

Please edit your previous posts, highlight the outputs and press the </> button. With the preview you can see, how it looks like.

After that is done, please plug out the USB wifi adapter and run the following command (it is a script, which shows all wireless network related informations and is useful for troubledshooting with your PCI wifi card, which is the one you want to get working):

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wget -N -t 5 -T 10 https://github.com/UbuntuForums/wireless-info/raw/master/wireless-info && chmod +x wireless-info && ./wireless-info

and

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cat wireless-info.txt | nc termbin.com 9999

Please post the URL from the terminal.

[alangauld]

OK, Thanks for the efforts. I'm busy tonight but should get it done tomorrow.

[alangauld]

This is the URL after running both commands.
Note that I had to cajole my ethernet into working long enough to do the networking stuff so that may affect results,
but the WiFi card alone will not connect to the net. Hopefully, that does not negate the tests


https://termbin.com/82j4

[HAWR]

Hello alangauld,

thanks for editing your posts and for the wireless infos on termbin. In your first post you wrote, that you can see your network but can't connect to it. In the wireless info no wifi networks are listed, so it seems the wifi was disabled while running the script. Can it be, that you accidently disabled it?

As can be seen well in the wireless info and as above you have two 2.GHz networks with the same SSID "PLUSNET-K3HHMG" but different MAC addresses, probably according to two access points (one is the main router, which also provide the 5GHz network):

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IN-USE  BSSID              SSID                 MODE   CHAN  RATE        SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY  
*       B8:D9:4D:57:DA:75  PLUSNET-5G           Infra  48    405 Mbit/s  39      ▂▄__  WPA2      
        98:AA:FC:32:A2:7F  PLUSNET-K3HHMG       Infra  11    270 Mbit/s  37      ▂▄__  WPA2      
        B8:D9:4D:57:DA:74  PLUSNET-K3HHMG       Infra  11    130 Mbit/s  34      ▂▄__  WPA2      

II do not know how big your house is, but am I right, that there is another access point nearby? Both have weak signals and maybe the problem is related to the point, that your PCIe wifi card "doesn't know" to which it should connect to. In your network connection you can assign a router over the field BSSID based on the MAC address you see above. Which of the access points is nearer to your computer workplace? Is it possible, that you disable for testing purposes the 5GHz network in the router configuration? The second access point seems to have only 2.4GHz network.

[alangauld]

seems the wifi was disabled while running the script

Ah rats! It might have been turned off in Network Manager, I'll need to rerun the commands. Sorry about that.
I'll post the new URL later tonight.

you have two 2.GHz networks with the same SSID "PLUSNET-K3HHMG" but different MAC addresses

This had me puzzled. Then I remembered that I have a WiFi extender downstairs that mimics the Router SSID. Could that be the cause? The PCIe card might be sensitive enough to see it even though the USB one doesn't seem to. I'm not sure how to turn that off or change it though, I've had it for years and forgotten the admin web address! And I can't switch it off because it's built in to a mains socket on the wall.

[HAWR]

and forgotten the admin web address!

Do you mean the IP address? There is the nice program "AngryIP", which I use to monitor the devices on the network I maintain. It should show you the IP address:

https://angryip.org/download/#linux

[alangauld]

OK, I tried to run the commands with the PCIe connected but as soon as I unplug the USB adapter Network manager stops seeing the PCIe card.

I ran iwconfig:

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$ iwconfig
wlp2s0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          
virbr0-nic  no wireless extensions.

virbr0    no wireless extensions.

enp3s0    no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

Then I ran the two commands and the URL was:

https://termbin.com/jevpk

[HAWR]

The output is the same as the first one, so there is a strange situation. In your first post you wrote, that you can't connect via the PCIe wifi card, but recognised the network. Was the USB adapter plugged in at that time?

I ask, because I read about a problem with installing the r8168 driver, that afterward wifi was gone. Mabe this is so with PCI devices and not with USB devices, because you have internet with your adadpter, right? Is it possible for you to uninsatll the realtek driver? Maybe it is described in a readme file downloaded and extracted with driver. When it's true, that installing driver makes wifi non-functional anymore, this could be a solution for your problem.

[alangauld]

The USB was plugged in when the PCIe recognized the networks. At the moment though it is only showing the 2.4G network not the 5G, which is odd because previously it showed both (plus some neighbour ones). I can uninstall the 8168 driver easily enough by installing the 8169, it apparently overwrites it. I'll try that since the 8168 didn't help with the ethernet anyway. A job for tomorrow though, I'll update this once I've tried it. Thanks again for the interest.

But the really odd thing is that the PCIe does connect to my phone as a hotspot, it's just the router networks it won't connect to. I really don't understand what can be so different. I'll maybe try changing the SSID of the router networks so there is no conflict with the extender, just in case ghats the issue.

[alangauld]

I changed the SSID and that made no difference at all.
But I pulled out the USB and tried the phone as a hotspot again and I can confirm the PCI card saw it and connected with no problems. It did not see any of the other networks. I put the USB back in and the PCIe continued to work with the phone and now also saw the 2.4GHz band network, but could not connect. I switched off the hotspot on the phone and it couldn't connect to anything. The USB connects to both 2.4 ad 5G reliably.

I tried to remove the ethernet driver but failed. More research on that tomorrow(err, later today!) Time for bed.

[alangauld]

I had an idea.
I loaded the latest Mint 20.3 ISO file onto a USB stick and booted from that.
It was exactly the same. Ethernet wouldn't connect at all. The PCIe Wifi only worked via phone
It could see the 2.4GHz router connection and asked for the password but failed to connect.

That's a completely fresh version of Mint with no driver tweaks of any kind.
Now I'm really puzzled.
I'm going to try a different distro entirely - Fedora is downloading as I type. I'll see if
it can connect. Watch this space...

[alangauld]

I tried Fedora with exactly the same results:
Ethernet rarely connects and if it does only for 5 minutes or so.
PCIe WiFi adapter is recognised and it identifies several WiFi networks including my router but cannot connect
USB WiFi adapter not recognised.

BTW The reason my current Mint distro connects with the USB adapter is that I had to install a custom driver
for it which is obviously missing from Mint 20.3 and Fedora ISOs. So, if we ignore the USB WiFi, all 3
are behaving identically.

Could it be something on my Router config that's blocking the new PCIe WiFi adapter? I don't remember
setting a list of allowed mac addresses or any such thing. But is that a possibility for WiFi access?.
I've had a quick look at the router admin screens and can't see anything obvious that would block access
from a new device.