Hi all, bit of an odd one that I’ve only been finding partially similar scenarios. Recently got a Framework laptop, threw EndeavourOS on, and having the behavior in the title.
My router is configured to broadcast its 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands on separate SSIDs, none of that merged nonsense. So far all other devices in my household seem to be just fine with it. Ran a speed test on my phone and got my expected results, bouncing off of my 400 Mbps download bandwidth. Desktop hardwired also not having any trouble.
This laptop here is where things get weird. If I connect to the 2.4 GHz band, things work as fast as you can expect 2.4 GHz wifi to work, doesn’t hit my bandwidth limit, but it’s 2.4 GHz so we expect this. However, if I switch to the 5 GHz SSID, so far the max speed I’ve hit for a second was 40 Mbps, with sustained speeds sometimes being around 20 Mbps but mostly around 5 Mbps. Websites are generally slow to load and pacman is taking minutes to update the package database or download a package.
Another curious detail is that the 5 GHz SSID is sometimes slow to be detected after boot. The 2.4 GHz SSID appears and can connect almost instantly. But the 5 GHz SSID can pop in maybe a minute after I am logged in. This does not happen every time, but often.
When I boot the EndeavourOS live USB, the 5 GHz SSID both appears instantly and works normally. But my installed system has this behavior instead. Even more interesting, my neighbor’s 5 GHz SSID is showing up almost instantly, but of course I can’t connect to that for a speed test. This makes me wonder if maybe I am experiencing some hyper specific negative reaction between the kernel module and my router specifically. But, I don’t really know how I would identify that.
I’ve seen lots of talk about kernel modules for wireless being futzy and I’m already kind of suspicious of that. Fact being it goes from fine on the live USB to not fine on an installed system, I’m not really sure what else it could be. But I’m not really sure how to proof that or test that, besides just disabling the active module and hoping I don’t turn this install into a brick.
I’ve attempted to remove the current module (modprobe -r), which killed my wireless connectivity. After a reboot the module was back and wireless worked the same as before removing the module.
I’ve also tried setting a cloned MAC address (just setting it to the actual MAC) in case my router was having a fit over MAC randomization somehow, but no change.
Obligatory power cycled both the laptop and router, to no avail.
Network info from inxi:
Device-1: MEDIATEK driver: mt7925e v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
port: N/A bus-ID: c0:00.0 chip-ID: 14c3:0717
IF: wlan0 state: up mac:
If anyone can give any suggestions, I’m all ears. Let me know what other system info would be handy to pull as well.
Edit 1: Phrasing
Edit 2: Got around to testing on another network, conveniently another Nighthawk router similar if not the same model as my own. The 5 GHz SSID on that one is fine, meaning I probably have something to look into with my router config and why it’s disagreeing with EndeavourOS.