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I am fairly new to Ubuntu. I have installed 16.04LTS on a new Dell Inspiron 5565. Everything seemed to be working fine until I noticed I had a slow Internet connection. When I look at my "Connection Information" it is showing the Speed at 6Mb/s. On my windows partition, I get 400+ Mb/s. I have tried the following:

  • Qualcomm Atheros Device [168c:0042] (rev 30) Wi-Fi driver installation
  • sudo sed -i 's/wifi.powersave = 3/wifi.powersave = 2/' /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf
  • Qualcomm Atheros Device [168c:0042] (rev 31) Wi-Fi driver installation
  • Nothing has seemed to work thus far. Here is what I am working with:

    cat proc/version

    Linux version 4.13.0-26-generic (buildd@lgw01-amd64-031) (gcc version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.5)) #29~16.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 9 22:00:44 UTC 2018

    lspci -vvnn |grep -A 9 Network

    Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros Device [168c:0042] (rev 31) Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:1810] Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast

    TAbort- SERR- Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci Kernel modules: ath10k_pci

    1 Answer 1

    1

    My connection information also shows 6 Mbps:

    $ iwconfig
    enp59s0   no wireless extensions.
    
    lo        no wireless extensions.
    
    wlp60s0   IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"TELUS1213-5G"  
              Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.22 GHz  Access Point: 70:F1:96:42:5F:06   
              Bit Rate=6 Mb/s   Tx-Power=17 dBm   
              Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
              Power Management:on
              Link Quality=64/70  Signal level=-46 dBm  
              Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
              Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:81   Missed beacon:0
    

    However speedtest.net reports almost 60 Mbps throughput:

    internet speed wifi

    Running the same test on an Ethernet adapter rated at 1000 Mbps results in same 60 Mbps Internet download speed. So speed is limited by ISP not by WiFi. Relevant lspci -vv:

    3b:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Device 0707:2400
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: Memory at dd600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        Region 2: I/O ports at d000 [size=128]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: alx
        Kernel modules: alx
    
    3c:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 32)
        Subsystem: Bigfoot Networks, Inc. QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 137
        Region 0: Memory at dd200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci
        Kernel modules: ath10k_pci
    

    I can't explain why the iwconfig speed is so low when the real speed is so high. The same results are obtained from other Linux CLI sources:

    $ iw dev wlp60s0 link
        (... SNIP ...)
        freq: 5220
        RX: 1421503515 bytes (4545343 packets)
        TX: 131449836 bytes (1061284 packets)
        signal: -55 dBm
        tx bitrate: 6.0 MBit/s
    
        bss flags:  short-preamble short-slot-time
        dtim period:    2
        beacon int: 100
    
    $ iwlist wlp60s0 bitrate
    wlp60s0   unknown bit-rate information.
              Current Bit Rate=6 Mb/s
    
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    • WinEunuuchs2Unix, that is exactly my issue. I do not know why I did not think to do a speed test and just trusted the connection information. Thank you. Jan 22, 2018 at 13:52
    • FWIW, my iwconfig shows 144.4 Mb/s. My speedtest shows 303.69 Mbit/s. I think that the number in iwconfig means nothing.
      – chili555
      Jan 22, 2018 at 14:11

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