I hope you have the time and patience to help a Linux novice.

Since wiring up my home office is not practically achievable, I'm trying to use Wi-Fi. My Netgear WNA3100M seems to work, I have connection, but the browser is very slow. It performs very poorly and intermittently in the browser: some times no response at all, a few minutes later pretty good. I should have a 20 Mb connection, but the most I get from speedtests is about 3. While a Windows laptop with built-in Wi-Fi next to my Linux desktop performs at around 20.

I've done some research on the forum and this solution seemed to work: netgear N300 USB mini adapter WNA3100M is unable to connect to wifi on ubuntu 15.04. But after a couple of reboots the problem has returned.

I must add that I've used a PCI-E Wi-Fi adapter (Asus N53) until about a month ago. I couldn't get that card working right on KXStudio and it had been a labour-intensive process just to keep it working on Ubuntu. Might be some drivers or other residue is messing up the Wi-Fi?

I'm currently using Ubuntu and KXStudio.

Thanks in advance for helping me out.

Some outputs that might help:

lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0846:9021 NetGear, Inc. 

usb-devices:

T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=06 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1
P: Vendor=0846 ProdID=9021 Rev=02.00
S: Manufacturer=Realtek
S: Product=NETGEAR WNA3100M
S: SerialNumber=00e04c000001
C: #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 4 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=rtl8192cu

nm-tool:

Device: wlan0 [VGV7519ECD1BE] ----------------------------------------------- Type: 802.11 WiFi Driver: rtl8192cu State: connected Default: yes HW Address: A4:2B:8C:6D:C9:55

ifconfig:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr a4:2b:8c:6d:c9:55 inet addr:192.168.2.18 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::a62b:8cff:fe6d:c955/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1530 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1596 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:641973 (641.9 KB) TX bytes:262283 (262.2 KB)

2 Answers

The problem is that you installed that driver without dkms. After a kernel upgrade the driver did not build.

You can install it from ppa with dkms

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl8192cu-dkms

5

I had similar issue. Here are my details:

• OS: Ubuntu 16.04
• Kernel: 4.8.15
• Device causing issue: Netgear WNA3100M
• Issue: Slow internet speed, no DNS resolution, unreliable connection
• Status after issue solved: Full internet speed, reliable connection, no issue with DNS resolution

WNA3100M uses rtl8192 Wi-Fi chip. Issue is seeming to occur because generic Ubuntu driver for rtl8192cu chip is not fully able to handle WNA3100M.

How to solve issue:

Step 1:

Install custom driver for WNA3100M. This will replace generic Ubuntu driver for rtl8192cu chip with a custom driver named 8192cu.

To do this, go to this link and follow all steps in Installation section:

RESTART SYSTEM.

To check whether installation was successful or not, you can run dkms status in terminal. The output should say installed for driver 8192cu. Here is my output:

nirmal@datainsights:~$ dkms status
8192cu, 1.10, 4.8.15-040815-generic, x86_64: installed

Step 2:

Make sure driver installed in step 1 loads. Your lsmod output should show 8192cu. Like this:

nirmal@datainsights:~$ lsmod | grep 8192cu
8192cu 532480 0

At the same time, rtl8192cu (generic Ubuntu driver) should not load, so running following command should give nothing back:

nirmal@datainsights:~$ lsmod | grep rtl8192cu

Read further if your driver is not loading.

If your driver 8192cu is not loading and you have disabled rtl8192cu, your WNA3100M will not be detected and your Wi-Fi will be disabled.

Try loading the driver with modprobe 8192cu. Is it returning error? If so, you must solve it and make sure that driver loads.

In my case, driver was not loading because of secure boot option in UEFI BIOS setting. I disabled secure boot option in BIOS menu and driver loaded automatically.

Ways to disabling secure boot in UEFI:

1. Disable secure boot option from UEFI BIOS menu (pressing F2 or DEL when computer starts, going to advanced mode etc. Google with your motherboard's model to find out exact steps)
2. Using mokutil ubuntu package (I have not tried this option)

In a nutshell, you have to install custom driver and make sure it loads.

1

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Sign up using Google Sign up using Facebook Sign up using Email and Password Submit

Post as a guest

Post Your Answer Discard

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy