Wifi problem after ubuntu 14.04 upgrade on HP laptop with Ralink 3290 card

[Rajiv Ranjan]

Hi all,

I have reasonably new HP laptop (HP 15R006TU). I was using it nicely with 14.04 LTS till a month ago.

After some updates the wifi started giving problems like frequent disconnections, now able to see the available wifi networks, slow speed even when connected, poor range etc.

Sometimes booting into previous kernels helped but the problems were still there.

I have tried almost all solutions given here. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1049466

I made fresh install of ubuntu 15.04 to see if it is fixed in newer version. Found that it isn't.

Present status after doing this:

quote---

• rt3290sta-2.6.0.0.dkms.tar.gz Edit (926.8 KiB, application/x-tar)

Found another possible workaround if you want to use vendor's proprietary drivers. Someone over at archlinux created a patch for mediatek's driver:https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/rt3290sta-dkms/?setlang=ru

Original Driver: http://www.mediatek.com/_en/07_downloads/01-1_windowsDetail.php?sn=5033
Patch: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v0kaibq0f4to0k2/rt3290sta.patch

I wrapped it up into DKMS so it can easily get rebuilt on kernel upgrades. Download and untar into /usr/src and then run:

dkms install -m rt3290sta -v 2.6.0.0
modprobe rt3290sta

This will:
1 - Add it to DKMS tree
2 - Build the rt3290sta driver with the patch
2 - Install it to the kernel driver tree
3 - Blacklist original kernel drivers rt2x00pci & rt2800pci from loading by creating /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ralink.conf

---unquote

- can connect to wifi

- range still poor

- remains connected but speed crawls to a few kbps after a few minutes

- all is good again after I do 'sodo service network-manager restart'

I talked to HP service center here in Calicut. They say they are willing to replace the wifi card free of cost.

Anybody else with the same problem?

Any suggestions?

[Rajiv Ranjan]

Forgot to add in the 'present status'

- After restarting network-manager things are good again only for a few minutes after which speed again crawls to a few kbps.

[Mukesh Unnikrishnan]

Check if your iwconfig has power management set to on.

If yes, turn it off by $sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off, wlan0 be your wireless device from ifconfig

More details here:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/85214/how-can-i-prevent-iwconfig-power-management-from-being-turned-on

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[Rajiv Ranjan]

Thanks for the reply Mukesh.

I had tried turning off the power management, but it was giving some error. I cant post the same now as the laptop is not presently with me. Will do so after I go back home.

BTW the interface is ra0, though it used to be wlan0.

[Mukesh Unnikrishnan]

So you are using an Ralink device, it seems. I haven't used them before, but I have heard similar issues with Ralink devices before. 

hope this might help:

https://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/wifi_ralink_rt2500dapper&prev=search

[Rajiv Ranjan]

I will try the things mentioned there though I have doubts because the info is very old and things that were true then may not be true now. The chip is also most likely other than RT2500 mentioned there.

Thanks anyway

[Mukesh Unnikrishnan]

Yes this information is very old. I don't know much about Ralink devices. If you find anything interesting, post it here.

[Rajiv Ranjan]

I reinstalled 14.04 LTS and surely enough, it was working with the live session and also with the installed system. But of it was the iso released in 2014. So I have to see how it is on an updated system. It had started giving problems only after updates last time.

The updates (about 450MB) will take some time because my internet speed has gone down after the FUP limit is reached.

Will post updates on the situation later. 

[Rajiv Ranjan]

The problem was finally solved by HP. They replaced the wifi card free of cost. They said they had received complaints about the device from others too and that HP was replacing the wifi cards of all those who come with a problem.

The replacement is a realtek card (RTL8723BE) that works out of the box with my ubuntu setup (14.04 LTS).

Though bluetooth is still not working properly, but that is not a big issue as it never worked with the older card either and I do not really need that feature.