Weak wifi signal

General system Newbie
1

Hi everyone,
I am experiencing problems with weak Wifi signal. Laptop is about 15 cm from router, and wifi signal is only 1 line.
Wifi card is BCM43142.
Using drivers that are automatically installed with system.
I remember reading something about changing antenna from terminal, but can not find, when i actually need that.

2

Could you post the output of

inxi -Na

3

Sorry for waiting.
Here is output:

Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM43142 802.11b/g/n vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: wl 
  v: kernel port: 6040 bus-ID: 08:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4365 class-ID: 0280 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 4000 bus-ID: 09:00.0 
  chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200
4

I see it’s using the r8169 kernel module. So it probably doesn’t work on the r8168. You would have to try it to see. I’m not sure if you have the r8168 installed as it usually blacklists the r8169. You could check with

pacman -Qi r8168

5

Is it also showing only one bar for the wifi when you type

nmcli dev wifi

?

2 Likes
6

@razor
You also could check your router settings and try a different channel maybe.

7

@ricklinux
This is output of that command:

Name            : r8168
Version         : 8.049.02-6
Description     : A kernel module for Realtek 8168 network cards
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : http://www.realtek.com.tw
Licenses        : GPL
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : glibc  linux
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 67.45 KiB
Packager        : Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) <heftig@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sun 25 Jul 2021 08:28:56 PM CEST
Install Date    : Wed 28 Jul 2021 02:38:39 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

@Strontium
Typing ncmli show full bar. Can it be problem with gnome 40? But regardless that, there is still huge latency. For example, clicking link, it will spin for 5 to 10 seconds, before loading up link.

Tried with different settings for router, as well as, mobile hotspot. Result is same.
Gnome shows only one bar, but cli shows full, but latency is abnormal.

8

Your WiFi is Broadcom using wl module and your ethernet is using the r8169 kernel module. I do see that the r8168 package is installed. You could remove the r8168 package and see if it has any effect.

9

Yep, it was strange for me, because wifi is broadcom. Removed, but sadly it didn’t affect anything.

10

Well i didn’t think it would but one never knows. I will do some more digging on this particular Realtek chip RTL810xE

1 Like
11

@razor
Are you using broadcom-wl? You might want to try the dkms version broadcom-wl-dkms. It should remove the other when you install it.

1 Like
12

Is there anything within range that might affect the magnetic field of the wifi? Silly question probably but just trying to eliminate the obvious things.

13

I think you need something like Manjaro, where you can switch between kernel versions. Maybe try accordingly some live cd for diagnostics…

14

Err you can switch kernels with whatever distro you use. You download and then update your Grub settings. It doesn’t need Manjaro Arch Debian or whatever.

15

Could sudo iwconfig wlan0 txpower 15 work?

16

what’s the txpower 15 thing? Just interested that is all.

17

It’s the power output of the wifi module, 15 dBm

18

Oh OK thanks for the info. :grin:

1 Like
19

@razor
I would be interested in what the command iwconfig shows. I am running the broadcom also but my chip is a BCM4360.

Mine shows

wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:“xxxxxxx”
Mode:Managed Frequency:5.22 GHz Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off

Edit: BTW I am running on broadcom-wl-dkms

Edit2: Using Sudo

[ricklinux@eos-kde ~]$ sudo iwconfig
[sudo] password for ricklinux: 
lo        no wireless extensions.

enp39s0   no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"xxxxxxx"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.22 GHz  Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx   
          Bit Rate=866.5 Mb/s   Tx-Power=200 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=47/70  Signal level=-63 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

[ricklinux@eos-kde ~]$
20

I’ve just run that with sudo. I got excessive retries x13 I am such a messed up bad boy.Screw you all! :rofl: