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Thread: Slow wifi on Zotac Ionitx-A motherboard (AR928X adapter)

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Beans
    50

    Slow wifi on Zotac Ionitx-A motherboard (AR928X adapter)

    I have a new motherboard that should be giving me some speedy 802.11n goodness but the wifi is going very slowly. The fastest file transfer I've managed has been 1.5 MB/s, and I more typically see below 0.5 MB/s. I'm using this as a MythTV frontend (Mythbuntu 9.04) and this just isn't fast enough. I have another frontend that had a card requiring the Ath9K drivers and it performed poorly too. I ended up replacing the card with an external wireless bridge. This has worked well and lets me stream HDTV nicely but I really don't want to buy another one.

    I've done some reading about this and can't find a definite solution that I'm prepared to try yet. Additionally, the wifi connection seems to drop out fairly frequently, especially during heavy network activity.

    I get the following outputs;

    lspci -nnv
    Code:
    04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002a] (rev 01)
    	Subsystem: Device [1a3b:1067]
    	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
    	Memory at febf0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
    	Capabilities: <access denied>
    	Kernel driver in use: ath9k
    	Kernel modules: ath9k
    lshw -C Network
    Code:
      *-network               
           description: Ethernet interface
           product: MCP79 Ethernet
           vendor: nVidia Corporation
           physical id: a
           bus info: pci@0000:00:0a.0
           logical name: eth0
           version: b1
           serial: 00:01:2e:27:1b:09
           capacity: 1GB/s
           width: 32 bits
           clock: 66MHz
           capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
           configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=forcedeth driverversion=0.61 latency=0 link=no maxlatency=20 mingnt=1 module=forcedeth multicast=yes port=MII
      *-network
           description: Wireless interface
           product: AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
           vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
           physical id: 0
           bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
           logical name: wmaster0
           version: 01
           serial: 00:24:23:07:ce:ed
           width: 64 bits
           clock: 33MHz
           capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
           configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k ip=192.168.0.199 latency=0 module=ath9k multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
      *-network DISABLED
           description: Ethernet interface
           physical id: 1
           logical name: pan0
           serial: 26:5c:42:c0:6a:4b
           capabilities: ethernet physical
           configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes
    uname -rm
    Code:
    2.6.28-14-generic x86_64
    sudo iwlist scan
    Code:
    lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.
    
    eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.
    
    wmaster0  Interface doesn't support scanning.
    
    wlan0     Scan completed :
              Cell 01 - Address: 00:1F:B3:09:78:D9
                        ESSID:"BigPond2584"
                        Mode:Master
                        Channel:3
                        Frequency:2.422 GHz (Channel 3)
                        Quality=20/100  Signal level:-108 dBm  Noise level=-121 dBm
                        Encryption key:on
                        IE: Unknown: 000B426967506F6E6432353834
                        IE: Unknown: 010882848B0C12961824
                        IE: Unknown: 030103
                        IE: Unknown: 0706555320010B1B
                        IE: WPA Version 1
                            Group Cipher : TKIP
                            Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                            Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                        IE: Unknown: 2A0100
                        IE: Unknown: 32043048606C
                        Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                                  11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                                  48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                        Extra:tsf=000008fe9d42e149
                        Extra: Last beacon: 564ms ago
              Cell 02 - Address: 00:1C:F0:FB:71:EA
                        ESSID:"Tony Harrison"
                        Mode:Master
                        Channel:9
                        Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
                        Quality=104/100  Signal level:-54 dBm  Noise level=-121 dBm
                        Encryption key:on
                        IE: Unknown: 000D546F6E79204861727269736F6E
                        IE: Unknown: 010482848B96
                        IE: Unknown: 030109
                        IE: Unknown: 2A0100
                        IE: Unknown: 32088C129824B048606C
                        IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                            Group Cipher : TKIP
                            Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP CCMP
                            Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                        IE: WPA Version 1
                            Group Cipher : TKIP
                            Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP CCMP
                            Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                        IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101000003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00
                        IE: Unknown: DD1E00904C334C101FFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
                        IE: Unknown: DD1A00904C340900040000000F000000000000000000000000000000
                        IE: Unknown: 2D1A4C101FFFFF000000000000000000000000000004000000000000
                        IE: Unknown: 3D160900000000000F000000000000000000000000000000
                        IE: Unknown: DD7F0050F204104A0001101044000102103B00010310470010EA59B958DA7832D49F2821D0EF775BF91021000E442D4C696E6B2053797374656D73102300074449522D363535102400024133104200046E6F6E651054000800060050F204000110110017587472656D65204E204749474142495420526F75746572100800020004
                        Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                                  9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                                  48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                        Extra:tsf=000003285a7a042d
                        Extra: Last beacon: 44ms ago
              Cell 03 - Address: 00:0F:66:59:D8:0E
                        ESSID:"adams family"
                        Mode:Master
                        Channel:6
                        Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                        Quality=18/100  Signal level:-109 dBm  Noise level=-121 dBm
                        Encryption key:off
                        IE: Unknown: 000C6164616D732066616D696C79
                        IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
                        IE: Unknown: 030106
                        IE: Unknown: 2A0104
                        IE: Unknown: 2F0104
                        IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
                        IE: Unknown: DD06001018020104
                        Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                                  24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                                  12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
                        Extra:tsf=0000004e254afd36
                        Extra: Last beacon: 364ms ago
    
    pan0      Interface doesn't support scanning.
    dmesg | grep -e ath -e wlan
    Code:
    [    4.848994] device-mapper: multipath: version 1.0.5 loaded
    [    4.849002] device-mapper: multipath round-robin: version 1.0.0 loaded
    [    9.285722] ath9k: 0.1
    [    9.287633] ath9k 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LN3A] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
    [    9.287655] ath9k 0000:04:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
    [    9.716401] phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'ath9k_rate_control'
    [    9.768985] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:radio
    [    9.769064] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:assoc
    [    9.769102] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:tx
    [    9.769142] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0:rx
    [   30.383411] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
    [   31.090987] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:0f:66:59:d8:0e
    [   31.092612] wlan0: authenticated
    [   31.092620] wlan0: associate with AP 00:0f:66:59:d8:0e
    [   31.099074] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:0f:66:59:d8:0e (capab=0x401 status=0 aid=1)
    [   31.099082] wlan0: associated
    [   31.111240] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
    [   31.418216] wlan0: disassociating by local choice (reason=3)
    [   42.012014] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
    [   50.601670] wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1c:f0:fb:71:ea
    [   50.603216] wlan0: authenticated
    [   50.603228] wlan0: associate with AP 00:1c:f0:fb:71:ea
    [   50.606889] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1c:f0:fb:71:ea (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=4)
    [   50.606897] wlan0: associated
    Is there anything obvious I should try?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Beans
    266

    Re: Slow wifi on Zotac Ionitx-A motherboard (AR928X adapter)

    try installing
    Code:
    sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-jaunty-generic
    taken from here

    Also - feel free to join in: 333730.
    ° pro: better future °
    ° against: corrupt corporations °

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Beans
    50

    Re: Slow wifi on Zotac Ionitx-A motherboard (AR928X adapter)

    That's great, the problem of the connections dropping is solved by this.

    The speed of the connection is still fairly slow however (about 8 Mb/s).

    This is adequate for me to stream SD video, but not HD. I can live with this for the short-term. Hopefully these drivers will mature with time.

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