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Old 01-30-2010, 03:22 AM   #16
mawkernewek
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Another thing I tried was connecting the desktop with a wire, which resulted in a transfer rate of 2.6MB/s (20.8Mbps) when the netbook was in my room, and 5.2MB/s (41.6Mbps) when the netbook was next to the router. So even next to the router the netbook isn't staying at 54Mbps consistently.

I am beginning to suspect some form of interference.

Perhaps the rtl8180 driver is fine except for misreporting signal strength.
 
Old 01-30-2010, 04:36 AM   #17
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On closer examination it isn't getting 54Mbps in windows either. Windows reports it as 54Mbps but it doesn't actually get it. A WinSCP file transfer runs much more slowly, so I think this is a hardware or interference issue and the linux drivers are probably fine.
 
Old 01-30-2010, 04:20 PM   #18
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I seem to get a decent connection on the netbook at least now the router has been moved. I think it might still be a bit flaky on the desktop.

So until the interference issue is sorted, I was wondering about connecting desktop to netbook via crossover cable

According to the online guide this should be easy to set up on Ubuntu 9.10 on the netbook, but somehow it doesn't work, what actually happens is networkmanager keeps popping up "Wired network Connection Established", then "Wired network Disconnected" repeatedly
 
Old 01-30-2010, 04:37 PM   #19
nimnull22
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Tell what wireless band do you use? N or G, or N+G?
Why can't you connect desktop to ethernet port and netbook to wireless? Ethernet can be up 100 meters long.
 
Old 01-31-2010, 04:19 AM   #20
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OK, the router is an N router, a Netgear DGN2000. It's using Channel 1 at the moment.

I could lay an ethernet cable, I have a 10 meter cable, which now the router has been moved is now easily long enough.

However I'm only living here temporarily as a lodger so not really able to go drilling holes in the doorframes to put a permament ethernet cable in.

The desktop has a G card, however the netbook has an N card, which I assume is why it gets better signal despite the G card having an external antenna fitted. Before the external antenna it barely connected at all.

The solution I have found, is to use the netbook wirelessly, and share the internet connection to the desktop using a crossover cable.

I had a bit of trouble setting that up since the simple method at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...nectionSharing didn't let the client get an IP address, but I managed to set the client's IP manually and now it works.

The wireless on the desktop works but can be a bit flaky especially when the boiler is on.

What someone told me is that some routers, such as the DGN2000 will slow all ports down to the speed of the slowest connection, so if you have someone with a flaky connection it makes it worse for all. I think my housemate and landlady are getting good connections now, so I think it should work better now. Thanks very much for your help!
 
Old 01-31-2010, 09:23 AM   #21
nimnull22
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If you can, check if it possible to set each bang on different channel. For example G - channel 1 and N - channel 2.
Also do:
iwlist wlan0 scan

And try to choose empty channel.

May be it helps.
 
Old 01-31-2010, 09:56 AM   #22
mawkernewek
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The one here is on Channel 1, the desktop picks up another one on channel 11, sometimes there is another network on channel 1 weakly detected.

the results of scan are:

sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:24:B2:32:A5:2E
Channel:1
Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Quality=45/70 Signal level=-65 dBm
Encryption keyn
ESSID:""
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
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Mode:Master

Although the router is set to "Up to 270Mbps" I only see the a/b/g bitrates on iwlist scan for some reason.

when connected nm-applet gives the speed as Unknown

It seems to give a correct speed e.g. 54Mbps when connected to a g router.

There doesn't seem to be an option to manually specify two different channels for the G and N streams. What it does say is this:

# Up to 130 Mbps - Wireless stations that support up to 130 Mbps can be used, such as the WN511B. In this case, your router will transmit two streams with different data in the same channel at the same time.
# Up to 270 Mbps - Wireless stations that support up to 270 Mbps can be used, such as the WN511B. Your router will run in channel expansion mode to achieve 270Mbps. This mode will support 40MHz or 20MHz bandwidth. The router will transmit data with expansion or no expansion frame by frame to avoid interference from other APs/clients data transmission.

So perhaps what is going on, is that the N stream isn't being transmitted due to interference whether from another wifi network or elsewhere?

In any case, the netbook seems to connect fairly well now, with about 60-70% signal strength at the moment. It was only around 50% earlier though, when the boiler was on, so I think it might be being affected by that.

Last edited by mawkernewek; 01-31-2010 at 10:02 AM.
 
Old 01-31-2010, 10:01 AM   #23
nimnull22
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Try to set: Up to 130 Mbps, see what will happen.
 
Old 01-31-2010, 10:05 AM   #24
mawkernewek
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No bitrates above 54Mbps are shown by iwlist scan whether 130Mbps or 270Mbps mode is used.

I've had Windows XP claim it was connected at 135Mbps before though so I think the n stream does exist.
 
Old 01-31-2010, 10:08 AM   #25
nimnull22
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OK. Then leave it like that. It works.
 
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Old 01-31-2010, 10:18 AM   #26
mawkernewek
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Oddly enough, Windows XP itself claims it is connected at 135Mbps, but inSSIDer claims 65Mbps. So the N channel exists, but I'm unsure whether Linux is detecting it.

In any case, even if I'm not getting the n speeds, it doesn't bother me too much as if I get 54Mbps that's much faster than the internet connection that unfortunately tops out at just under 3Mbps :-(
 
Old 01-31-2010, 10:25 AM   #27
nimnull22
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Internet connection at 3Mbps - it is good already.
 
Old 01-31-2010, 10:32 AM   #28
mawkernewek
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Thanks for all your replies, I'll see if it stays reliable when the boiler comes on again.
 
Old 02-02-2010, 12:26 PM   #29
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I downloaded the Realtek module from their web site, compiled it, blacklisted the rtl8180 module and had no problems connecting it to my access point with a fairly strong connection.

root@artume:~# uname -a
Linux artume 2.6.29.6-smp #2 SMP Mon Dec 7 16:02:16 CST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

I downloaded the rtl8185_linux_26.1030.0625.2009 version of the module. I just looked and saw that they have updated it since I installed it on Jan 22nd.

root@artume:~# lsmod|grep 8180
r8180 99720 0
ieee80211_rtl 60064 1 r8180

wlan0 802.11b/g linked ESSID:"xxxxx"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.442 GHz Access Point: 00:07:40:01:00:2C
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
Retryn RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=89/100 Signal level=-33 dBm Noise level=-113 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

This is with wpa_supplicant configured for WPA2-PSK.

I just ran a bandwidth test via speakeasy.net, and am getting the full 10mb download throughput.

Last Result:

Download Speed: 11244 kbps (1405.5 KB/s transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 2119 kbps (264.9 KB/s transfer rate)

This machine is perhaps 10 meters from the access point, but is going through a fairly thick floor. I get app'x 900KB/s transfer rates using wget when downloading a file from another wireless client on my network.

I had no success at all with the rtl8180 kernel module.

This is the lspci -v info for this card:

02:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 18
I/O ports at 1000 [size=256]
Memory at f8303000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Kernel driver in use: rtl8180
Kernel modules: r8180, rtl8180

The 'Kernel driver in use' is wrong.

It is unfortunate that this module does not compile for you, mawkernewek.
 
Old 02-02-2010, 12:38 PM   #30
nimnull22
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Send your experience to OpenSuse forum, they will change the driver with next update.
 
  


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