On 12/04/2013 05:08 PM, David Pinilla Caparrós wrote:
2013/12/4 Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
On 12/04/2013 03:40 PM, David Pinilla Caparrós wrote:
Hello,
I have mailed with Larry Finger asking for a problem and he has
pointed me to this list.
I am an Arch Linux User with a Clevo based laptop.
It ships with the RTL8723AE. I have been reading posts around the net
and found that some people are having problems and talking about the
driver and something about the RX or TX Power.
With the 2 APs wich I usually use I can only reach 18Mb/s of Bit rate
whatever the signal level or link quality is. Both of them are 802.11
G and not N I think.
The connection is very unstable. Sometimes powering the wifi off and
on increases the performance a bit when it's impossible to do anything
(pings to gateway don't reply)
If they are related to the driver, I would be proud to help with
anything that I am able to. Testing for example.
I have a recent version of the stable Kernel but I dont know if the
firmware files are up to date.
Some data:
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723AE
PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 0726
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Memory at f7900000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 01-23-87-fe-ff-4c-e0-00
Kernel driver in use: rtl8723ae
Kernel modules: rtl8723ae
root ~ dmesg | grep rtl
[ 2.734124] rtl8723ae 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
[ 2.749732] rtl8723ae: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8723fw_B.bin
[ 2.752940] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'rtl_rc'
[ 2.753057] rtlwifi: wireless switch is on
[ 8838.570486] rtlwifi: wireless switch is o
root ~ uname -a
Linux DPini-Laptop 3.12.2-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Nov 29 21:14:15
CET 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Iwconfig:
wlp3s0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"Pinis_AP"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point:
00:1A:2B:12:34:56
Bit Rate=18 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=50/70 Signal level=-60 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:9 Missed beacon:0
root ~ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
root ⋯ lib firmware rtlwifi md5sum rtl8723fw*
ce50dfe07dbb1bfe9e14bdb315a4b28a rtl8723fw_B.bin
69ccaffbe94cc0ef1b89c25290e19b2e rtl8723fw.bin
Inline reply
Those md5sums match those of the latest firmware.
Thanks. It's a great notice
Your signal is a bit lower than mine. My iwconfig shows
wlp14s0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"NETGEAR81"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 20:E5:2A:01:F7:EA
Bit Rate=7.2 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=60/70 Signal level=-50 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:2254 Missed beacon:0
My AP is 802.11n. Note that the 7.2 Mbps is misleading. When I pushed data
through using netperf, it jumped to 72.2 Mbps, and my throughput was
TCP_MAERTS Test: 30.64 27.65 30.54 28.86 33.33 33.59 37.86 39.40 39.76
37.20
RX Results: max 39.76, min 27.65. Mean 33.88(4.22)
TCP_STREAM Test: 35.34 37.34 29.59 20.10 36.11 40.24 40.67 41.93 38.08
33.93
TX Results: max 41.93, min 20.10. Mean 35.33(6.13)
When I switch to an 802.11g AP, I get the following:
TCP_MAERTS Test: 10.77 10.81 11.53 11.69 10.46 10.16 11.04 10.66 7.34
10.90
RX Results: max 11.69, min 7.34. Mean 10.54(1.15)
TCP_STREAM Test: 5.74 6.24 6.76 6.43 7.37 6.23 7.63 7.07 7.07
6.50
TX Results: max 7.63, min 5.74. Mean 6.70(0.55)
Here at home I get similar results:
dpini ~ iperf -c 192.168.1.102
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.102, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.117 port 36449 connected with 192.168.1.102 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.3 sec 10.0 MBytes 8.13 Mbits/sec
dpini ~ iperf -c 192.168.1.102
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.102, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.117 port 36450 connected with 192.168.1.102 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.1 sec 7.50 MBytes 6.25 Mbits/sec
I will try it tomorrow at school, where I have the most of the problems.
Those numbers could probably be improved, but without any details on how the
chip works, what could one do. Messing with power settings on the amplifiers
could lead to destruction of radios. I cannot take that chance.
Im ok with that. When I was talking about the power is because I have
read somwhere that there were problems with power management in the
driver. I am trying to get working another wireless card in a router.
I could be confused about the power problem.
As to stability, I am in the middle of a long-term test of rtl8723ae. After
roughly 86,000 seconds of connect time, I have had only 9 disconnections,
and all were due to a bug in the roaming code that I have so far been unable
to find. The interface thinks it has lost the APs beacons, does a
disconnect, and immediately reconnects. Otherwise, the connection was stable
until I forced a reconnect to my G AP for this reply.
Sorry for beeing the cause of this disconnection. I really appreciate
the work that you and others do so everyone can use FLOSS drivers.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what to do for your complaints. If you want
higher throughput, then an 802.11n AP seems warranted.
The hope that we can replace the wireless home router soon.
But for the AP on the school I can't do anything. Thay have spent a
lof of money buying HP AP with central management and I can't do
anything to change them.
Larry
I think that the problems in the school can be because channel saturation.
There are some APs reachable with the same SSID (every AP have 3 SSID
I think). But the other students doesn't have any problems. I have
checked with "other OS and the RTL drivers" on the laptop and the
connection is ok.
It coluld be related with the bug with roaming?
Any tip for diagnosing this? I can help you with the bug providing
data or doing any test?
Please do not drop the mailing list from the reply. Always use "Reply-to-All". I
have added the Cc on my reply, but because it was not on your mail, I dare not
trim the reply.
You will see messages like the following if you have the bug:
finger@larrylap:~/realtek> dmesg | grep watchdog
[24098.632094] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88203.348090] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88221.856380] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88228.360104] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88238.520095] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88346.876102] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88353.032106] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88377.196053] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
[88417.776110] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback():<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now
As you can see this happens quite infrequently. Finding it will not be easy.
Larry
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