kernel reports incorrect wireless rate of 1Mb/s for 54Mb/s capable zd1211rw based card

Bug #477212 reported by Rohit
38
This bug affects 8 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Linux
New
Undecided
Unassigned
linux (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

I have a zd1211rw based network card that reports 54Mb/s connection rate under jaunty. However, in karmic, it reports 1Mb/s but I have tested the card and I am getting speeds that are faster than this reported rate. I think this is just a bug with the network-manager-gnome reporting an incorrect rate.

My system:
Ubuntu Karmic 9.10
zd1211rw wireless driver for 2Wire wireless g USB device
network-manager and network-manager-gnome 0.8~a~git.20091

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Date: Sat Nov 7 00:00:40 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
IfupdownConfig:
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
IpRoute:
 192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.76 metric 2
 169.254.0.0/16 dev wlan0 scope link metric 1000
 default via 192.168.1.254 dev wlan0 proto static
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: network-manager-gnome 0.8~a~git.20091014t134532.4033e62-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: network-manager-applet
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2909): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2909): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:3010): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:2978): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed

Revision history for this message
Rohit (rohitpid-gmail) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Mikko Saarinen (mikk0) wrote :

Same problem with my usb dongle (A-LINK) using the zd1211rw module.
Bit Rate shows 1 MB/s unless manually set otherwise (see bug:468465 in launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/468465)

Also, I have very poor signal ratio, even when the dongle is less than 5 meters from the router and there is only single wall (6 cm concrete) between them. The wall does not have iron in it and the router has been set to send the signal at 100 % power.
The signal is 36...41 % and ping shows some dropped packets between the router and my computer.

Is there any other solution to this than getting a line of sight - which seems to improve the ratio to 67 % over 3 meters, but still that is not even near full ratio which I thought it should be over this distance.

Mikko

Revision history for this message
Jaakko Haavisto (asraf-fi) wrote :

I have the same problem with a-link usb wifi. I just updated to Ubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10 and my signal level dropped from 80-95% to 20-30%. Also iwconfig is telling that link only 1Mb. If I force link back to 54Mb with iwconfig, then it works only couple of minutes and then connection is lost, so using iwconfig to boost up bit rate isn't solution.

I now have kernel 2.6.31-19-generic #56-Ubuntu running and that is having this bug. I also tried booting on older kernel (2.6.28-18.59 that was already installed to my computer) and then signal level was back to 80-95% and iwconfig showed bitrate 54Mb.
So it seems that something between those kernel releases has broken ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset drivers.

Jaakko

Revision history for this message
noble (noblebaker) wrote :

I'm having this issue also. The speed's not just being reported wrong, it really is slow. Transferring files over the network Nautilus reports speeds under 100 KB/sec. Booting an older Kernel per Jaako's suggestion resolves the problem. In my case the adapter is only a meter from the router.

Revision history for this message
PeteStean (peteste) wrote :

Same issue here - using a zydas dongle and the zd1211rw kernel module - I can change the speed using:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

however it reverts to 1MB whenever the system is restarted

Revision history for this message
Davide Capodaglio (davidecapod) wrote :

Same issue for me: I have a Digicom USB Wave 54 dongle, that uses the zd1211rw driver, on Ubuntu 9.10 i386.
Even if my AP is just a meter away and in the line of sight, iwconfig reports around 40/100 signal and 1 Mb/s rate.

BUT, it is actually going faster than this, because doing an ADSL speed test (like www.speedtest.net) it reports correctly my ADSL line speed (around 7 Mb/s), so the reported "1 Mb/s" speed is obviously wrong.

This appears to be a quite common issue, see http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1309703

Revision history for this message
Davide Capodaglio (davidecapod) wrote :

NetworkManager is not responsible for this, since the same bad "bit rate" and "signal" values are visible with iwconfig.
I marked this bug affecting also the Linux Kernel directly (since the zd1211rw driver is upstream).

Revision history for this message
Davide Capodaglio (davidecapod) wrote :

Still New,Undecided,Unassigned ?!

Revision history for this message
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote :

Davide,

Please remain patient and courteous.

Note that this bug was wrongly set as affecting the Linux project, whereas it should have been set to affect the 'linux' package to get attention from developers. I've fixed this now.

To get to know more about how to triage and sort bugs reported against Ubuntu, you might want to read the HowToTriage guide from the Ubuntu wiki here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToTriage

affects: network-manager-applet (Ubuntu) → linux (Ubuntu)
summary: - network-manager-gnome reports incorrect wireless rate of 1Mb/s for
- 54Mb/s capable zd1211rw based card
+ kernel reports incorrect wireless rate of 1Mb/s for 54Mb/s capable
+ zd1211rw based card
Revision history for this message
Jiri Grönroos (jiri-gronroos) wrote :

This bug seems to be fixed in Maverick (at least for me). NM shows connection speed as 54 Mbps (using WPA2 TKIP/AES) and my internet connection (10/10 Mbps through 1 Gbps router) is only slightly faster when using ethernet.

lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 008: ID 0ace:1215 ZyDAS ZD1211B 802.11g

xyz@i5:~$ grep -i zd /var/log/kern.log
Feb 15 00:08:21 i5 kernel: [ 10.422914] zd1211rw 1-1.1:1.0: phy0
Feb 15 00:08:21 i5 kernel: [ 10.422932] usbcore: registered new interface driver zd1211rw
Feb 15 00:08:22 i5 kernel: [ 11.577704] zd1211rw 1-1.1:1.0: firmware version 4725
Feb 15 00:08:22 i5 kernel: [ 11.617637] zd1211rw 1-1.1:1.0: zd1211b chip 0ace:1215 v4810 high 00-1a-9f AL2230_RF pa0 g--NS

This bug was a huge problem starting from Karmic/Lucid with my A-Link USB WLAN adapter but since then I've switched back to ethernet. But as for those who use this chipset/driver, this shouldn't be a problem under Maverick.

Please report back if this problem still occurs in Maverick and/or Natty!

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee) wrote :

Hi Rohit,

If you could also please test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

    [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

tags: added: needs-upstream-testing
tags: added: kj-triage
Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Brad Figg (brad-figg) wrote : Unsupported series, setting status to "Won't Fix".

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Won't Fix
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.