Slow speed wireless networkcard

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Hi hubalon

We need more info about your system in order to try to help you. What Linux Mint version are you using? What chipset does your system use?

You can open a terminal and type the following and then post:

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lspci

or this for a more verbose output:

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lspci -vv

Thanx and tgc

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This is the output that we needed:

02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5008 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
Subsystem: Device 07d1:3a09
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 168, Cache Line Size: 128 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
Region 0: Memory at 44000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
Kernel modules: ath9k


The "ath9k" is a driver from the Madwifi Project, which is what your current adapter is using. That appears to be the newest driver available for that adapter.

We also need the output from your PCI card as well to see what driver it is using, so please reattach things back like they were just temporarily and run the "lspci -vv" command again and repost output.

Some laptops have a physical on board switch that allows a user to shut off power to the built in radio. Do you have a switch like this? On Linux a lot of the time the switch, if present does not function properly or at all due to several reasons, however there are some possible work-arounds. Sometimes there are BIOS switches present so that may be worth checking. We may have to try blacklisting the kernel module for that particular pci card so that it wont load and you wont have to remove it, and then it would still be available and installed for other OS's.

After you repost we will go from there. And again, please post which Mint version your using. eg:(Linux Mint 6 Felicia KDE CE , etc) Your laptop appears to be a Fujitsu.

Thanx for being patient with Mint!

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Hi hubalon

I will do my best to try and help you. I am no expert either by the way, but I do like to give back to the community by helping here in things that Ive had at some experience with. Never fear though because we have some really great users here who are indeed experts and most of them read the forums regularly and help out as well. Our forum is a great place to learn about Linux and all it takes is for people to spend a little time here reading and soon they will find their knowledge growing by leaps and bounds. Most of the time by helping here I learn as well or learn maybe just a better way to do something!


FUJITSU-SIEMENS AMILO A 1630 (your computer) appears to be a really great machine according to what I have read about it. It is a preferred system by some gamers.

This line is your mini PCI card:


00:0b.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device 6833
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=slow >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 64, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 19
Region 0: Memory at febf8000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: rt2500pci
Kernel modules: rt2500pci

RaLink devices are known to work very well with Linux out of the box for the most part. I myself use a RaLink USB wifi card that works extremely well. These devices are also recommended at the Linux Mint Wiki.

The output shows that it is using the correct Linux driver/module, which is the "rt2500pci".

Check here: http://hardware4linux.info/component/15646/

This card should be working fine unless there is another problem like, maybe it is sharing an IRQ with another device that is not compatible.

Both the adapter and the pci-mini appear to be using different IRQ's (interrupt requests) while they are run on your system separately.

We can try to go ahead and blacklist the module for the pci-mini or first make another test. You've already said the adapter by itself runs fine so we will skip a solo testing of it.

Lets try another test ok.

Test: With only the mini-pci in your PC and up and running, Use the various hardware devices in your system, such as disk, sound, video, etc. This will ensure that your system will handle interrupts (IRQ's) for all these various devices.

Then while they are running type in a terminal:

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cat /proc/interrupts

which will display a list and count of all interrupts which the Linux kernel has handled so far. In the far right column in this list, If two or more devices are listed in a single row, then they are sharing that particular IRQ. This normal on modern systems but can sometimes cause a conflict.

Bottom line: Im trying to figure out the problem your mini-pci is having instead of just quickly recommending that we disable it from loading. We may have to try that next though. Maybe Husse or Fred will see this and post something here for you as well. Those guys rock!

Please post your results....

tgc

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Ok next I need you to try the following so we can compare some info.

1.-With the mini-pci installed only, run the following in a terminal:

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ifconfig

and

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 iwconfig

*Note- You may need to open a web browser and surf a bit so we can get an average for packets, but we are mainly wanting to see bite rates and transmit powers compared between the two.


2.-Now with just your adapter installed repeat the above procedure.


When you post these please keep the results labeled and seperate. eg:(with mini-pci or with adapter)

Thanx for being patient!

EDIT:

I keep forgetting to ask you this. Do you have any of the problems that you've mentioned when you use "the live CD or DVD"???

If you cant remember please try that as well and let us know if the problems exist when booting live...

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Are you sure that you had the mini-pci completely unattached from your system when you tested the adapter???

I am seeing wlan0 with the pci-mini, but in the second test I am seeing wlan1, which would indicate that the system can still see the mini-pci.

As you know Im sure, in computers 0=1, the first entry, and 1 would actually = 2 in this case, making wlan1 the second device being seen. What we should be seeing in the second test is wlan0 instead of wlan1.

In 19: 13990 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci1394, eth0, 0000:00:0b.0 both the Ethernet and mini-pci are sharing Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 19, but I dont believe that should be a conflict, especially since Ethernet is not being used.

The driver is the correct one listed for the device. I thought maybe your driver might of been corrupted, but if you have same troubles in the live CD we can rule that out I guess. Ive thought about a BIOS change but still not sure enough to recommend that. Cant be a router problem because the same card works with windows with the only difference there being the OS's. It must be some kind of conflict, Ive just not been able to locate it as of yet.

Ive been searching long and hard for a solution for the mini-pci. It should be working because the Linux drivers are there out of the box.

When I first start my system the bit rate is low. About 1 or 2 usually, but after just a minute or two while running the web browser it climbs to 11 and stays there.

My "iwconfig" after a fresh reboot:

slider@slider-desktop ~ $ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"me"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:02:6F:41:54:8F
Bit Rate=2 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2346 B
Link Quality=88/100 Signal level=-68 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

slider@slider-desktop ~ $ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"me"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:02:6F:41:54:8F
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2346 B
Link Quality=68/100 Signal level=-68 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

slider@slider-desktop ~ $

See the bit rate change? It increased to 11.

When you measure the speed tell me how and when you are doing it??? In other words what program are you doing it with and when???

Is the difference in speed just numerical that you notice or is it a real visual thing as well that you can see???

We can try to prevent the mini-pci module from loading next if you want to try that??? If we succeed that would let you keep the mini-pci installed, but you would be using the adapter, with hopefully no speed loss. Let me know, in the meantime I will keep looking into the mini-pci.

Please read and answer all questions as best that you can. You've done great so far and thanx for your patience.

Im hoping some of our other users will post their idea's as well. The more heads working on this the better....

tgc

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Thank you hubalon, but I really wanted this to work out for you with the installed card. Given more time I believe we will or someone else with far more knowledge than me will.

Ok what we are going to TRY next is to blacklist the mini-pci module from loading at startup, which if it works, will let you at least keep it installed in your PC, but non-functional. Then you will have to use the adapter.

You know, if your BIOS happened to have a radio card switch we could shut it off there, but then it wouldn't work with your windows OS.

The pounds sign "#" is used to comment out things that we dont want the system to read. Everything else is read by the system in these types of files. Being that Ive seen two driver names for this card with slightly different letters, we will enter them both. Also your system should make up a backup copy of this file for you, so you might keep an eye out for it after you save this file. If you decide to undo these changes later on you can just delete either the lines that we added or delete the file "blacklist" and rename the backup file to "blacklist". The backup file may have a name like "blacklist~". That is your original.

There is still a chance that the aliases file might try to sneak something else in for this card, at least in theory LOL! I hope not.


Where I write the word kate (which is my favorite text editor) you can write the name of the one that you use ok. Yours may be "gedit" for Gnome.

Open a terminal and type:

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sudo kate /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Enter your password when asked then press enter.

When the window comes up maximize it so that you are not confused as to what the lines are by wordwrap, and then scroll down to the last line and press enter twice. That will make an empty line between the last line and the entry that you are gonna make. (follow the file layout)

Add the following: (you can copy and paste)

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# disable mini-pci test1
blacklist rt2500

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# disable mini-pci test2
blacklist rt2500pci

Click on save and close the window. Then restart and pray!


Some links about your card and adapter drivers:

http://hardware4linux.info/component/15646/

http://hardware4linux.info/type/22/

http://madwifi-project.org/

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tou ... Ralink2500


I hope this works and helps you in some way! Please let me know how it turns out or if you need any more help.........

tvgc