I recently noticed that wireless performance on my built-in Intel Wireless WiFi Link 5100 dropped from adequate speeds both over local network (laptop->router) and over internet (laptop->router->speed test sites) down to hideously slow - less than 2mbps. The problem appears to be with using wireless N rather than wireless G.
Other PCs with wireless have no problem with the N wireless in the house. In fact, to get adequate speeds, I have to put the router in b/g only modes - if wireless N is available it auto-selects and bogs down horribly.
Once I move my new router or my old router to wireless G only, my speeds are consistently at where they should be, internet download-wise. However, this does limit me to 54mbps on the local network, with the typical interference issues wireless G experiences as well.
Not to mention the work wi-fi, which I don't have the option of changing bands with.
Now the gritty details necessary:
sudo lshw -C network:
Code:
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: Wireless WiFi Link 5100
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 00
serial: 00:16:ea:85:96:e2
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn ip=192.168.10.101 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
resources: irq:31 memory:fdffe000-fdffffff
Results from dmesg | grep iwl
Code:
[ 17.430392] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, 1.3.27ks
[ 17.430395] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2009 Intel Corporation
[ 17.451335] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 17.451366] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 17.451458] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 5100AGN REV=0x54
[ 17.505241] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 24 802.11a channels
[ 17.505330] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: irq 31 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 17.762943] phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'
[ 17.772318] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: firmware: requesting lbm-iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode
[ 17.808056] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: lbm-iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode firmware file req failed: -2
[ 17.808061] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: firmware: requesting lbm-iwlwifi-5000-1.ucode
[ 17.905834] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Loaded firmware lbm-iwlwifi-5000-1.ucode, which is deprecated. Please use API v2 instead.
[ 17.905840] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 8.24.2.12
[ 18.047744] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::radio
[ 18.047766] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::assoc
[ 18.047781] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::RX
[ 18.047796] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::TX
Note: When I check /lib/firmware, iwlwifi-5000-2 firmware is present:
Code:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 345K 2009-11-10 03:21 iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode
so I have no idea why the message "the bm-iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode firmware file req failed: -2" prints.
iwconfig results (when connected to wireless in 'B/G mixed' mode):
Code:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:"Atheros"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:14:D1:69:2B:1E
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-24 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
iwconfig results (when connected to wireless in 'N' mode)
Code:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:"Atheros"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:14:D1:69:2B:1E
Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-23 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
I have noted that the 'Bit Rate' settings are fairly frequently low or incorrect. For 802.11g it seems to be more often correct than 802.11n, however.
ifconfig (wireless N mode)
Code:
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:ea:85:96:e2
inet addr:192.168.10.101 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:eaff:fe85:96e2/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:65895 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:48047 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:80796868 (80.7 MB) TX bytes:23654321 (23.6 MB)
ifconfig (wireless b/g mixed mode)
Code:
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:ea:85:96:e2
inet addr:192.168.10.101 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:eaff:fe85:96e2/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:65913 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:48079 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:80798994 (80.7 MB) TX bytes:23660010 (23.6 MB)
Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated - this wireless N bug is irking, since I'd like to start stream from my main PC to my laptop for VLC to do music, TV shows, etc rather than running constant maintenance cleanups on my laptop to have enough HDD space.
Thank you!
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