wifi issues

[pcs]

so I read the wifi thread which was closed by a mod saying that you should make a new post. I hope I'm reading that right becuase I know how annoying that can be to just ask for help.

so over the weekend, I got a wifi adapter , http://raspi.tv/wp-content/uploads/2015 ... dongle.jpg, and it is PAINFULLY slow so I went to google and started following some trouble shooting problems. I have a cana kit adapter so my voltage is fine, I have a zero4u usb hub and I even disabled power management. Out of all the fixes, none seem to be working so I came here to figure out how to improve this thing. Other users are claiming 200-300 mb/s on their zero wifi which I find to be incredibly high and not normal. What should I expect out of it?

pi zero running jessie raspbian latest build.

[MaxK1]

What does "iwconfig wlan0" have to say about your connection? Try plugging it in to a short USB extension cable and physically move it away from your power supply, monitor, hub and of course the Pi itself. Any or all those components are capable of generating enough RF hash to cause problems for those little dongles...

[pcs]

IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"ATT2hG4EzQ"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: F8:18:97:CE:DC:72
Bit Rate=65 Mb/s Tx-Power=31 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:3 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


I have 2 pi0's, this is my other one I haven't really done anything to yet that is why powermanagement is on but with it if off, it still has the same bit rate. I haven't tested it yet by moving it away from the pi with an adpater yet.

[MaxK1]

Do you have 2 identical dongles? Or just the one you moved to the other Rpi 0? If you have more than 1, do they all show the same problem?

[pcs]

its the same dongle and I just put it in my other pi0. Each pi0 shows the exact same problem with no difference in speeds, it stays right around 65mb/s. My extender comes in tomorrow so i'll be able to test to see if its RF interference although I suspect that this isn't the case. Other users have similar setups with no RF interference. I believe its a configuration although I can't test that till tomorrow after work.

[MaxK1]

"Other users have similar setups with no RF interference. "

Yeah - we have Pi users with no power issues because the PSU has 5V 2.5A printed on the bottom... So it must be 5V 2.5A, right? So why is the red LED blinking...?

Unless you check around for RF noise with a SpecAn, you won't know. Next best thing I can think of is putting the dongle on a 6 foot cable and get it as far away from the rest of the system as possible to see how much you can improve your signal. With an extension cable you can also re-orient the dongle for best signal/noise/"quality". Picking another channel might help as well.

[jamesh]

"Other users have similar setups with no RF interference. "

Yeah - we have Pi users with no power issues because the PSU has 5V 2.5A printed on the bottom... So it must be 5V 2.5A, right? So why is the red LED blinking...?

Unless you check around for RF noise with a SpecAn, you won't know. Next best thing I can think of is putting the dongle on a 6 foot cable and get it as far away from the rest of the system as possible to see how much you can improve your signal. With an extension cable you can also re-orient the dongle for best signal/noise/"quality". Picking another channel might help as well.

Please reduce snark level.

[MaxK1]

Sorry 'bout that...

[pcs]

so after the usb extension is plugged in, my iwconfig is displaying the exact same information with no extender. This should rule out RF interference, I suspect it is something else.

what settings can I look at to see if that will do the trick?

[Ernst]

so after the usb extension is plugged in, my iwconfig is displaying the exact same information with no extender. This should rule out RF interference, I suspect it is something else.

what settings can I look at to see if that will do the trick?

I would suggest that the user is the problem.

and it is PAINFULLY slow

Can you please provide information on what you mean with PAINFULLY, how did you measure, what did you measure. And what did you use to compare.

[MaxK1]

Curious. There should be some change if you move the dongle around, even if it's minor... I suspect the dongle or the driver is not correctly reporting the information needed. Can you post the output from lsusb? And did you change the wifi channel?

[pcs]

thanks for the hlep first of all, it is greatly appreciated. Also, sorry being a few days late on this but I've been busy and just go back to working on my pi.

Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0a5c:bd1e Broadcom Corp.
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 046d:c051 Logitech, Inc. G3 (MX518) Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 1b1c:1b07 Corsair
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1a40:0101 Terminus Technology Inc. 4-Port HUB
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

[MaxK1]

You stated that you have the latest Raspbian - Have you updated/upgraded/dist-upgrade to be sure you have the latest driver and firmware? What kind of ping times do you get to your router?

[jaysalsburg]

I was about to give up on my new raspberry pi 3. I could not connect the wifi. After much difficulty, I opened the configuration site in my Xfinity Technicolor TC8305C cable box and configured it on the Gateway Connection WiFi page; the Mac Filter Setting, Device Name to raspberrypi and the MAC Address to the one reported in sudo iwlist wlan0 scan. This allowed connection to wifi.

[pcs]

PING 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=3.15 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.63 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.66 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.75 ms

I updated the firmware wit rpi-update and after the reboot still at 65ms. Not sure if the command targeted my wifi dongle though, is there a separate command to update it?

[pcs]

I was about to give up on my new raspberry pi 3. I could not connect the wifi. After much difficulty, I opened the configuration site in my Xfinity Technicolor TC8305C cable box and configured it on the Gateway Connection WiFi page; the Mac Filter Setting, Device Name to raspberrypi and the MAC Address to the one reported in sudo iwlist wlan0 scan. This allowed connection to wifi.

the problem isn't connecting, its not operating at a usable speed. When my phone is tethered to my pi, its roughly 200mb/s, the official raspberry pi dongle is operating at 65mb/s with most users I've read claiming 200-300mb/s. Its under performing for some reason.

latest raspbian jessie, updated drivers, usb extender to move it out of the way of RF interference and its the same still.

[DougieLawson]

Look at the WiFi channel. Move away from channel 1 & channel 11 because they're extremely crowded with domestic APs running a default configuration.

One of my APs runs on channel4, the other runs on channel 8.

[pcs]

Look at the WiFi channel. Move away from channel 1 & channel 11 because they're extremely crowded with domestic APs running a default configuration.

One of my APs runs on channel4, the other runs on channel 8.

ahh I forgot to try this. I ran iwconfig wlan0 channel 6. However I get an error, set failed on device wlan0: no such device. Isn't this the way to set the channel?

[DougieLawson]

You need to do that on your router/AP.

[pcs]

You need to do that on your router/AP.

ahh ok. Well, if my roommates use wifi devices and they're not on the channel I set it on, do they lose wifi on their devices until they switch channels?

i'd hate to reconfigure everything in our place just to test the pi.

[DougieLawson]

Channel switching for any client is automatic.