Linksys WUSB600N problem

[Ego Death]

A while back my old Linksys wireless usb-g adapter gave out, so I decided to get the better range N version. After plugging it in on Ubuntu Karmic, it didn't work to well. It would show the access points but would not connect. Eventually I decided to install my old Windows XP disk to make sure the adapter worked. It did. Then I tried the adapter on a Mint 7 partition.

Recently when trying to install Mint 8 I got the same problem I did while in Ubuntu Karmic, which wasn't so much of a surprise, as Mint is based on Ubuntu, but sort of a let down as Mint 8 is a beautiful OS.. This was same for trying to upgrade and the fresh install.

I really hate windows, but didn't want to be stuck with an older linux distro that wouldn't be supported for much longer (besides I had some hardware trouble in 7 that I did not have on the live cd, so I went trying some other distro's. In Fedora 12, my adapter was not even recognized, same for 11. In openSUSE 11.2 I had the same problem that I had experienced with Karmic, and then nothing showed at all in 11.1. Same story for Mandriva.

lusb got me this: ID 1737:0071 Linksys
I think it would be odd that in the same distro a chipset would be supported in one version and then not in the next. Could this problem lie within the new linux kernal?

Any help would be appreciated.

TL;DR: I got a WUSB600N Linksys wireless adapter with chipset 1737:0071, it worked in Gloria not in Helena. It also did not work on many other newer (and a few older) linux distros.

[Husse]

Here's a bug report on launchpad with lot's of info and some solution
Try this

Code: Select all

echo "blacklist rt2800usb" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Code: Select all

echo "rt2870sta" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Reboot
Seems to be about 80% chance you get a connection

[Ego Death]

Thank you very much, I'll try that after I install mint 8 and report back

[Ego Death]

That did the trick! I must say, I was not expecting a solution like this! Thank you.

[bbear]

Hello,
I wonder if anyone has any advice on getting the Linksys WUSB600 adapter to work on Linux Mint Gloria?

I have a RevB version, lusb gives me 1737:0079 Linksys

First I tried just plugging in the adapter and powering up my computer but the wireless network is not detected. Network manager doesn't even offer a wireless connection for selection.

So, I decided to try the blacklist rt2800usb, the echo "rt2870sta" .. trick. Unfortunately this didn't work either.

I see that lusb returns a slightly different set of numbers - could it be that my adapter has a different chipset maybe?

thanks in advance for your help

[Husse]

There are two versions of the WUSB600N and the one with USB ID 1737:0079 is a newer version with a Ralink rt35x2 chip
You either have to use ndiswrapper (Windows Wireless Drivers) with the XP driver or the new RT3572 driver from Ralink
For more info on download and what to do look at this bug report on Launchpad
If you need more help post back - I hope that report is enough for you to get it working

[bbear]

Many thanks for your help,

some time ago I got my old Dlink DWA-140 working by installing the ralink drivers as it was not supported on the flavor of OS which I was using at the time. I recall the process of getting it up and running very painful. One of the problems was that my OS installation did not have the Linux source so running make would not work at all until downloading the source. With My Mint 7 install, will all the source be there for running make?

I have never used ndiswrapper before. Is there a disadvantage with using this approach? It sounds like ndiswrapper might save me some pain. If I get it up and running initially using ndiswrapper can I switch later to using to installing the rt3572 driver and using that?

Do you know if the rt3572 driver is also missing from Mint 8?

Lastly, does anyone know if there is a way to identify whether a WUSB600 box has the old or the new (RevB) version by looking at the outside of the box?

thanks again for all your help

[bbear]

Unfortunately I was unable to get the WUSB600 to work using ndiswrapper. I see exactly the same problem as that reported by Alejandro Vaquero in his post to launchpad:

I tried the ndiswrapper steps on a 32bit machine (Thinkpad z60t) and still doesn't work. Seems it detected the device but could not load the driver:
$ ndiswrapper -l
rt2870 : driver installed
device (1737:0079) present

dmesg show:
[ 497.791979] ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'MmGetSystemRoutineAddress'
[ 497.792453] ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:206): couldn't prepare driver 'rt2870'
[ 497.794223] ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:108): couldn't load driver rt2870; check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'

and /var/log/messages:
Oct 31 09:15:11 ibm-laptop loadndisdriver: loadndisdriver: load_driver(358): couldn't load driver rt2870

I am confused by the replies to that launchpad thread, I don't think that Alejandro got any help with this, it looks like all subsequent posts were helping others with installing the ralink driver, rather than getting it to work with ndiswrapper.

Maybe my only hope is to try to install the rt3572 driver, although that sounds like it has problems too. Sound also like the WUSB600 might only run at G speed even if I was to get the driver to install.

Do you have any advice on what is the best way to proceed?

EDIT: Ok, I read the help on the ubuntu forums for troubleshooting ndiswrapper problems http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=885847

From there it told me to check for my device/id in the ndiswrapper database, for the WUSB600 V2 I found the following entry, http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/n ... s_WUSB600N

From that ndiswrapper entry, this does not sound very promising:

Update:
Device shows signs of life under Unbuntu 9.1 (ndiswrapper 1.55/kernel 2.6.31-15). Device will connect and transfer data, in unsecured mode, "out of the box". Best to boot with device connected, and leave it there, else interface may hang. Haven't, yet, been able to establish a secured connection, but did notice that fiddling with thing may also cause the interface to hang. Once hung, a reboot is required to restore operation.
Ok, over the last week I've discovered the device is simply flaky. At times it will connect to my WEP2 access point, other times it won't (but if I un-secure the access point, it will). No other configuration changes were made in the meantime. Also, the device always dies after a couple of minutes/hours, having it been used since re-boot, or not. ndiswrapper hangs and only a reboot will resurrect it.
I'm sidelining this for now, going with a better supported, native, device.

I am wondering if I should abandon this device and return it to the store where I purchased it. Problem is that so far I have been able to find no alternative device for my wireless-n network. A few weeks ago I set out to buy a Dlink DWA-160 to go with my Dlink DIR-825 dual band router. Then I discovered that there were version A1 and A2 versions of the DWA-160 and both had atheros chipsets and both had problems. So I set out to find a rev B version of the DWA-160 which I had read had rt2783 chipset and worked better with Linux. After searching many Office Depot and Office Max and Frys stores in the Seattle area (while on holiday) I found no Rev B DWA-160's so abandoned that idea. Now I find that the Linksys WUSB600 doesn't work either.

I would try to find the V1 WUSB600 as people seem to have had success with that but I don't know if any way of identifying if it is V1 or V2 from the box (unlike Dlink who do mark the h/w version on the box)

Do you have any advice on what would be the best way to proceed from here?

[Husse]

I've become pretty good at solving problems, but not at recommending hardware - I would never be sure it really works
And I have never seen a WUSB600N in my life, but I have a WAP54G2 v2 Linksys AP
According to Linksys they add the version number on their labels and if there is no version mentioned it is v1

[bbear]

EDIT: now working at 270Mb/s, see edit at bottom of this post.

Husse,
I wanted to let you know that I successfully installed the ralink rt3572 driver. I was not 100% sure of the steps to do in the install as the information I found on the ubuntu forums (for installing a similar ralink driver) and the instructions in the readme which came with the driver download were different.

Anyway, I now have my WUSB600N V2 connected at 130MBPS, which is in line with what I read on that launchpad report. I am hoping that by changing the options before I run make again I can get the full 300mbps speed out of it. I was even able to reboot my machine and it still came up with the wireless connection working!

Funny thing was that even though I had my wired Ethernet connection, it still came up using the wireless.

I don't seem to have any control over the settings for the WUSB600 from the network tools in mint, so I am not sure if I installed the driver incorrectly. I read in the ralink readme that there are three ways of configuring it and I am not sure if I am doing any of those at the moment. Maybe I need to use different settings in the os/linux/config.mk when I run make, settings related to 'SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT' maybe?

I am hoping that the fact that I am using a Dlink DIR-825 router with it isn't going to restrict the speed.

Anyway, this is a good start and I was hoping that perhaps you could help me to configure this thing to get the optimum performance out of it?

thanks

EDIT: I made some changes to my DIR-825 router setup, including creating a different ssid name for 5ghz band (I was originally using same ssid name for both 2.4ghz and 5ghz band!)

I am now typing this message over a 270Mb/s wireless connection using my Linksys WUSB600N V2 adapter
I have not done much testing, and my computer is only 6ft from my router but the connection is solid so far. Hopefully I am not going to be sending this adapter back to the store after all.

[bbear]

husse,
I have been using my WUSB600N V2 for a few days now, it works well for surfing the net etc, however I am seeing (hearing ) problems when streaming audio from my mounted Windows share. The problem is in the form of audio 'glitches' about every minute or so. These are breaks in the audio, lasting from a fraction of a second to 2 or 3 seconds. My WUSB600N is connecting at 270mbps according to network_manager so I don't understand why I am having these problems.

The interesting thing is that the audio clips which I have the problem with are all AAC (.m4a non-DRM songs from the iTunes folder on my Windows box). MP3's all play ok. Also, these AAC files play without a problem if I use a 1gbps wired Ethernet connection to my router. I am using a Dlink DIR-825 dual band wireless-n 1Gbps router, it has the latest firmware loaded.

These audio glitches happen when I play these AAC songs using the following apps:

Boxee
Gnome Player
VLC

I had this problem originally when I was using my old Dlink wireless-G USB adapter and put it down to that being too slow. That is why I did the upgrade to wireless-n, now I find that is not working smoothly either. I am at a loss as what to try next.

I could try coping over a huge (2Gb) file from my windows share to my Mint 7 box, but that wouldn't really tell me much about possible drop outs which might be occurring. Do you know of a tool which I can use on my Mint box to analyse the traffic over the wireless connection when I am playing the AAC songs? How about wireshark, would that work on Mint?

thanks for your help.

[Husse]

Wireshark is in the repos - at least for Gloria and that could be the tool for the task
As it is only one kind of audio files I suspect some problem with the wifi protocol

[bbear]

Husse,
I carried out some data transfer experiments, I timed the transfer manually but since the amount of data was large the results should be meaningful. Note that I have not installed wireshark yet so I don't have any results from that yet.

Size of file to be transferred: 3,171,422,212 bytes

Mounted my windows share on my Linux Mint box as follows:

sudo mount //192.xxx.x.xx/temp /home/username/windows_share -t cifs -o username=username,password=mypassword

With a wireless-n connection showing at 100% (machine and router in same room) and guessing at something like 30% overhead for the wireless protocol, I reckon that the data transfer rate should be around:

(270mpbs connection according to network manager)

270/8 x 0.7 = 23.625 Mbytes per second.

At that rate it should take 3,171,422,212/23.625 = 134.24 secs to transfer the file. (assuming no additional overhead, samba? etc)

Time it actually took to copy the file from my windows share (cp windows_share/big_file . ) was 15mins 8.77 secs (908 seconds) !!

This equates to 3,171,522,212/908 = 3.49 Mbytes per second

As a comparison, I disconnected wireless and hooked my Linux Mint box to the 1gbps Ethernet port on my Dlink router ..

Actual time taken to transfer file: 190 seconds

This equates to 3,171,422,212/190 = 16.7 Mbytes per second

Theoretical maximum for 1Gbps Ethernet (assuming no overhead) is 1000/8 = 125 Mbytes per second

What I would like to know is whether an actual data transfer rate of 3.49 Mbytes per second over wireless-n is reasonable or not or whether this apparent low transfer rate could be the reason for the audio glitches when playing these AAC (.m4a files) from my Windows share?

Any comments/feedback welcome.

[bbear]

Husse,
I ran some experiments yesterday using wireshark, there were some interesting findings both for wireless-n and 1Gbps wired connections.

I read a discussion about expected data transfer rates for wireless-n and it seems that users are getting less speed than I was expecting, having said that I think that what might be hurting my connection is that the fact that I have to set my Dlink router to 20Mhz channel width. If I select the option for 'Auto 20/40 Mhz' I am unable to get a connection for some reason. I think that if I can get it to connect using 40mhz width it might double the data rate. I am not certain about this but I recall reading somewhere that running at 40mhz setting was key to getting the maximum performance from the link.

Here is a link to that user discussion I mentioned:

http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=234002

I am in the process of summarizing the wireshark results, I will post them soon.

EDIT: Found the answer to being able to set 'Auto 20/40mhz' mode on the DIR-825, it was to select 'wireless a+n' mode. Seems to be a bug in the firmware. Anyway, it didn't make any difference to the performance. So I decided to install the WUSB600N V2 on my Windows XP Home box - I get almost exactly the same transfer rate! (16mins to transfer 3G file)

I found a post to the Linksys forums, someone with a suggestion to change the advanced wireless settings. I am waiting for confirmation that these settings also apply to the V2 version before I try it.

Sorry, but I have still not had time to summarize the wireshark results properly but I wanted to mention a couple of observations so far:

1. There is a lot of querying by Boxee of just about every media file on my windows share - could this be slowing things down and contributing to the audio glitches?
2. For the wireless-n result from wireshark, I see a message about 'Retransmission' every time there is a large gap in the audio. (There are also some small gaps which do not correspond to any retransmission). The 1Gbps wired connection does not show any retransmission events.

[Husse]

I did not read the link you provided but I am awaiting the report on your experience with wireshark
I think that you generally get between a third and half the theoretical wifi speed

[bbear]

Husse,

here are a couple of examples of the Retransmission events captured by Wireshark. This only occurs when I use the wireless-n connection.

37615 104.821597 192.168.0.10 192.168.0.12 TCP [TCP segment of a reassembled PDU]
37616 104.845841 192.168.0.12 192.168.0.10 TCP [TCP ACKed lost segment] 40950 > microsoft-ds [ACK] Seq=9030 Ack=1724877 Win=1476 Len=0 TSV=433674 TSER=161933
37617 106.904055 192.168.0.12 192.168.0.10 SMB Read AndX Request, FID: 0x400a, 32768 bytes at offset 1700534
37618 107.116736 192.168.0.12 192.168.0.10 SMB [TCP Retransmission] Read AndX Request, FID: 0x400a, 32768 bytes at offset 1700534
37619 108.31116 192.168.0.1 239.255.255.250 SSDP NOTIFY * HTTP/1.1

40367 228.333297 192.168.0.1 239.255.255.250 SSDP NOTIFY * HTTP/1.1
40368 228.397757 192.168.0.12 192.168.0.10 SMB Read AndX Request, FID: 0x400a, 32768 bytes at offset 3568310
40369 228.612695 192.168.0.12 192.168.0.10 SMB [TCP Retransmission] Read AndX Request, FID: 0x400a, 32768 bytes at offset 3568310
40370 229.599674 192.168.0.10 192.168.0.12 TCP [TCP segment of a reassembled PDU]
40371 229.599736 192.168.0.12 192.168.0.10 TCP 40950 > microsoft-ds [ACK] Seq=12452 Ack=3597692 Win=1946 Len=0 TSV=464862 TSER=163182

Next I will try playing the same AAC file from my Windows machine, since that shows a similar time to copy over that 3G file. It will be interesting to see (hear) if that also has audio glitches.

I don't know if these Retransmission events shouldn't be there, but it is interesting that they always happen when there are large glitches in the audio playback. Note that there are some very short glitches also which are not accompanied by these Retransmission events.

I am beginning to wonder if wireless-n is ever going be to fast enough for my media center. I am having problems playing audio files, I don't know what chance I have of streaming HD video!

[bbear]

Husse,
I decided to upload my wireshark results here, there was nothing in there which is 'confidential' and maybe others reading this might have the time to look at my results and might have some idea what could be causing these TCP Retransmissions.
Note that this latest set of results I disabled the media scanning by Boxee as this was only confusing things. This media scanning phenomena worries me as it will definitely use up network bandwidth but for now I think it is better to turn it off so we can ignore it.
For the two sets of wireshark results, there is one marked difference - for the wireless result only, I see 'TCP Retransmission' events and these always result in glitches in the AAC audio streaming.

Question is: what causes these TCP Retransmissions ..

Problem with ralink (rt37572) driver?
data rate not keeping up with Boxee streaming the AAC file?
Samba problem due to wireless network too slow?
other ideas?

EDIT: I found this from the following wiki article ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissi ... l_Protocol

Due to network congestion, traffic load balancing, or other unpredictable network behavior, IP packets can be lost or delivered out of order. TCP detects these problems, requests retransmission of lost packets, rearranges out-of-order packets, and even helps minimize network congestion to reduce the occurrence of the other problems. Once the TCP receiver has finally reassembled a perfect copy of the data originally transmitted, it passes that datagram to the application program. Thus, TCP abstracts the application's communication from the underlying networking details.
TCP is used extensively by many of the Internet's most popular applications, including the World Wide Web, E-mail, File Transfer Protocol, Secure Shell, and some streaming media applications.
TCP is optimized for accurate delivery rather than timely delivery, and therefore, TCP sometimes incurs relatively long delays (in the order of seconds) while waiting for out-of-order messages or retransmissions of lost messages. It is not particularly suitable for real-time applications such as Voice over IP. For such applications, protocols like the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) running over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) are usually recommended instead.[2]

I also found many articles on the web discussing the problems with TCP Retransmission with wireless links due to the time that it takes to recover from a retransmission.

Big question still is why are these TCP Retransmissions occurring?

thanks

[Husse]

Big question still is why are these TCP Retransmissions occurring?

Because of an error in the transmission - I'm not trying to be funny
This can be caused by lots of things when it comes to wifi
A microwave oven, any one of a lot of gadgets that use the free 2,4 GHZ band including Bluetooth, another wifi
Less disturbance in the 5 GHz band
I our WLAN at home I have had to limit the speed to 11 Mbps and change channel to get a reliable connection, before that my wife lost connection several times an hour (in Win XP)

[bbear]

I decided to go 5ghz wireless-n precisely because I was seeing interference from my microwave. But now I have my wireless router and wireless-n adapter upstairs, about 30ft from microwave, I have 5ghz band selected and my the microwave is not running when I experience these audio glitches/TCP Retransmission events. I can go downstairs to unplug my microwave just to eliminate that possibility.

I do have a Bluetooth USB adapter and it is a few feet from my wireless-n dongle, I could try disconnecting that, even though as you point out it used 2.4Ghz band. I will loose my keyboard though as I use it for my Logitech playstation wireless keyboard.

EDIT: I have removed my Bluetooth adapter and Microwave oven and the audio glitches still happen.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe it to be caused by interference.

I cannot get through a single AAC song without it glitching about ten times.

[bbear]

Husse,

I am sorry but I don't know why I didn't think of mentioning this before but when using wireless-n I ran up network-manager and for the ra0 interface it says:

Transmission errors: 0
Reception errors: 0
Collisions : 0

Does this mean that I can rule out interference as a problem? Or does it just mean that the TCP layer was able to handle problems without loosing the link completely?