help needed troubleshooting slow connection

wheeliee · 11-13-2008, 01:00 AM

Hi,

I've a cable connection, that is provided to 4 computers on a WRT54GL router, with WPA2 enc. Connection speed on all but this Slackware machines checks in at about 7 mega bits/sec -- this Slackware machine gets about .5 mega bits/sec (fwiw, on this speedtest page: http://speedtest.wi.rr.com/ ).

When this Slackware machine had Vista on it, it did hit that 7 mega bits speed, so this concludes that the adapter is physically capable.

I'm simply clueless as to what it could be, and would appreciate some help in troubleshooting this problem.
Here are the computer specs:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...708937&lang=en

Some relevant pastes:

Code:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"linksys"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: xxx
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B   
          Encryption key:xxx [3]
          Link Quality=84/100  Signal level=-74 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

KwifiManager shows the connection speed on wlan0 to be 54 MB/sec, and the signal strength at about 180

Due to physical constraints, I cannot hook it up to the router with wire.

If any more additional information is needed, please state so. (And bear with me for few, since it'll take me some time to pull the info -- I'm new to slackware/nix).

Thanks,
-wheelie

salasi · 11-13-2008, 03:47 AM

Have a lok at the threads referenced here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...light=slow+dns
as it is quite possible that name look-ups are your problem.

wheeliee · 11-13-2008, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salasi

Have a lok at the threads referenced here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...light=slow+dns
as it is quite possible that name look-ups are your problem.

Hi salasi,

Thank you for replying.

The symptoms I have don't exactly point to DNS problems -- i.e., look-up times don't seem abnormal, but long loads are slow (e.g., a youtube video will take quite long to load, and the speed test giving a slow speed).

-wheelie

masonm · 11-13-2008, 06:17 PM

Try disabling ipv6 and see what happens.

wheeliee · 11-13-2008, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masonm

Try disabling ipv6 and see what happens.

Hi masonm,

Thank you very much for your reply.

I tried disabling ipv6 (by adding "blacklist ipv6" in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist), and it makes no discernible difference.

I did notice one very weird thing this time though:
after initiating wpa_supplicant (wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and then dhcpcd wlan0), for the first minute and a half or so, my speed checks in at 2.5 mega bits (from the previous .5 mega bits @ http://speedtest.wi.rr.com/ test), while Kwifimanager displays the LAN connection speed to be 1-2 mega bits/sec, and after a minute when Kwifimanager displays the LAN speed to be 54 mega bits/sec, the connection speed @ http://speedtest.wi.rr.com/ goes back to the old .5 mega bits/sec again.

I don't know what this behavior is indicative of -- I'm hoping some of you more experienced people can tell me what may be a possible cause for this. My hunch is that I messed with some config file in a bad way.. but that's not saying much to solve the problem..

Anyway, here's my wpa_supplicant.conf:

Quote:

# WPA2-PSK
network={
scan_ssid=1
ssid="linksys"
proto=WPA2
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
psk="xxx"
priority=1
}