Macbook wireless

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 11:10 am

Before I throw my MBP out of the window I thought I'd ask here. Basically, the wifi just drops out, even though icon still shows connected. I know this as I can't ping either the access point or any external sites, so it would appear that despite being connected the interface is not actually open.

It has been working fine, I had to re install mint a few weeks ago because of my own stupidity, but took the chance to have mint as the OS on my MBP. I've tried re installing the bcmwl-kernel-source but still no luck. Will I have to go to the b43 firmware? My Broadcom card is the 4331 chipset.

Here is the mintWiFi output:

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 02)
==> PCI ID = 14e4:4331 (rev 02)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11abg ESSID:"EngoAP2"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: C0:4A:00:FF:BE:68
Bit Rate:26 Mb/s Tx-Power=200 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=38/70 Signal level=-72 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr a8:20:66:39:a1:f8
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:16

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:640 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:640 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:114375 (114.3 KB) TX bytes:114375 (114.3 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b0:34:95:ee:fd:7c
inet addr:192.168.0.102 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::b234:95ff:feee:fd7c/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:9459 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:733
TX packets:9340 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7842464 (7.8 MB) TX bytes:1674644 (1.6 MB)
Interrupt:17

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 192.168.0.254
Address: 192.168.0.254#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 216.58.209.238

Jon

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 11:31 am

Ok so I just installed the b43 driver, so will see how it gets on. It seems better already, but of course that could be psychological

Jon

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:07 pm

Crap, still dropping out every so often.

Anybody got any ideas?

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 4:42 pm

Right, at home the connection seems stable with no drop outs or lost packets.

I guess the problem must be with my WiFi at the office. I'll have to investigate further. It also exhibits the same symptoms using the hotspot on my android phone.

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 7:44 am

Seeing as I seem to be having a conversation with myself, I'll post another update.

It seems that when connected to my TP Link portable router, it works best fixing it on a particular WiFi channel, and also fixing the bandwidth to 20Mhz.

Since doing that this morning I haven't experienced a problem, whereas before it was dropping out every 10 minutes.

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:10 pm

Still bloody happening, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I've even tried dropping the MTU to 1492.

SleeperService · Post by **SleeperService** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:49 pm

I've found success adjusting these additional parameters on my WAP.

These settings manage how data packets are handled on the network. Within advanced wireless settings, set the Beacon Interval to 50 (the default is usually 100), set the Fragmentation Threshold to 2306 (default is typically 2346), and set the RTS Threshold to 2307 (the default is 2347). Make sure you take note of what the settings were before you change in case anything goes wrong.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405997,00.asp

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:02 pm

Buy that man a beer(hopefully).

That seems to have cured it, 6000 ping attempts and 0% lost for a change. It has been running at around 60% loss.

Thanks for the guidance

SleeperService · Post by **SleeperService** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:25 pm

jonnie_r wrote: Thanks for the guidance

Yay! No problem, enjoy the wireless.

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:48 pm

Now I'm starting to lose the plot.........

Why after 6000 ping packets with no failure yesterday has it returned to being abysmal? Admittedly this is only a small sample but it tells the story.

Screenshot.png

SleeperService · Post by **SleeperService** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:00 pm

If you have a smart phone you can grab a great app like WiFi Analyzer to check the congestion on your channel. It will also recommend the best channel for your band. I use it all the time, very handy.

jonnie_r · Post by **jonnie_r** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:44 am

Ditched the TP Link portable 3G router switched to a Zoom one. Seems to be better, still getting some packet loss, but I am using a wireless connection, so to be expected.

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