RTL8192SU: Slow wireless in 12.04

**JohnDillinger43** · February 17th, 2013

Okay, I tried rebooting, and found that Ubuntu did not load the new driver. One problem may be the location of the driver? I downloaded it to and built it in my home folder (just a folder called "wirelessdriver"); is there a centralized location for drivers that I need to move it to? Or create a link from?

**mikewhatever** · February 18th, 2013

It doesn't matter in which folder you build the modules. Rebooting isn't required, as it should load and work right away.

Have you blacklisted the built in module? There has been a typo (now corrected) in my previous post, rtl8192su and rtl8192cu are not the same. Make sure you blacklist the correct one.

**JohnDillinger43** · February 18th, 2013

I successfully blacklisted the old driver, but then the wireless didn't work at all -- it didn't load the new driver. The readme tells me to do the following:

# $/sbin/insmod rt2870sta.ko
# $/sbin/ifconfig ra0 inet YOUR_IP up

I'm not sure what these commands do, so I'm not sure how to troubleshoot. The second I gather is supposed to load the new driver (or simply activate the wireless adapter), but when I run it it says no such device. Should I be using wlan0 instead of ra0?

**ahallubuntu** · February 18th, 2013

Originally Posted by JohnDillinger43

I successfully blacklisted the old driver, but then the wireless didn't work at all -- it didn't load the new driver. The readme tells me to do the following:

# $/sbin/insmod rt2870sta.ko
# $/sbin/ifconfig ra0 inet YOUR_IP up

I'm not sure what these commands do, so I'm not sure how to troubleshoot. The second I gather is supposed to load the new driver (or simply activate the wireless adapter), but when I run it it says no such device. Should I be using wlan0 instead of ra0?

If you have an RTL8192SU chipset and run the install script and it runs correctly, it will automatically install the driver. You don't have to "copy" it anywhere.

Are you sure you really have a Realtek chipset? Why are you messing with an Ralink chipset RT2870 driver above? They are completely different. (Not even the same company.) If you really have a Ralink chipset, running the installer for the Realtek chipset will do nothing, but blacklisting the existing Ralink driver would of course remove the driver so you wouldn't have wireless.

**ahallubuntu** · February 18th, 2013

Originally Posted by JohnDillinger43

When I upgraded to 12.04 I suddenly started experience really slow download speeds with my wireless adapter. I'm using a PremierTek PT-H10DN, which uses the RTL8192SU chipset.

According to this, it uses the Ralink (not Realtek) RT3072 chipset:

http://www.premiertek.net/products/n...-H10DN-1W.html

**JohnDillinger43** · February 19th, 2013

Yep, you're right -- it's ralink, not realtek. The driver I'm trying to use isn't actually 2870; I copied and pasted that from the (out of date) readme. The actual driver file I have is rt5370sta.ko. That's what was created by the makefile in the tar the tech support guys sent me; there's a line in the makefile that says CHIPSET = 5370, but I'm not sure how to properly change it (just changing that line throws up errors), or if that's necessary/best.

**JohnDillinger43** · April 9th, 2013

I messed around with this a bit more and still no luck. I'm revisiting it now because I just had to reinstall Ubuntu, and whereas my connection was slow but functional before it is now unusable. The connection works, it's just so slow that most things I try to access time out. I tried rebuilding the driver, but I'm a little confused because in the makefile it has "CHIPSET = 5370", whereas my adapter uses RT3072. Am I misunderstanding, or is there something wrong with that? I tried changing the line in the makefile but then it won't compile. I've emailed the tech support guys at PremierTek, but they seem loath to give me any useful information, so any further suggestions would be much appreciated.