Numerous lost packets when pinging modem/router/wifi via wifi

Support & Help Requests
#1

I was forced to change modem/routers when my old one bit the dust. I purchased a Netgear D7000 and have been fighting it for the last five days. I am up to level 2 support so far and even they are confused. It loses connection after 6 to 12 hours. On my second D7000. But this is a different problem.

I am doing everything in Windows 7 for Netgear, obviously. But here is something I discovered today in Mate 16.04 on my laptop.

If I ping my modem/router (192.168.0.1) through its wifi through a wifi extender in Windows 7 I have no packets lost. Using an HP nx6325 running Windows 7 Pro.

If I use the same path in Mate 16.04 Using my LenovoG780 laptop I have lots of packets lost. Below is just a short dump from a terminal “ping” command. Also notice pinging the router is worse than going to Google on the web.

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$ ping 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=2.09 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=1.98 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=1.88 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=2.03 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=17 ttl=64 time=7.15 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=64 time=1.52 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=19 ttl=64 time=1.92 ms
^C
— 192.168.0.1 ping statistics —
24 packets transmitted, 7 received, 70% packet loss, time 23041ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.522/2.658/7.158/1.845 ms

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$ ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (172.217.3.164) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=37.0 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=37.4 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=38.9 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=37.4 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=5 ttl=56 time=37.4 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=6 ttl=56 time=36.8 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=7 ttl=56 time=37.4 ms
64 bytes from sea15s11-in-f4.1e100.net (172.217.3.164): icmp_seq=8 ttl=56 time=69.4 ms
^C
— www.google.com ping statistics —
10 packets transmitted, 8 received, 20% packet loss, time 9020ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 36.887/41.522/69.468/10.581 ms
fred@Lenovo-G780:~$

I noticed this because everything “seems” slower than before. Being still new at Linux, I don’t know where to start to unravel this mystery. Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks, Fred

#2

Did I understand correctly: HP laptop with Windows 7 = no problems. Lenovo laptop with Ubuntu Mate = dropped packets. Both using the same Wifi connection.

Just a thought: have you tried HP laptop with UM (Ubuntu Mate)? If it’s Windows install only, boot it from a usb stick (or a CD) and use the live session.

What I’m after is that the test with HP + UM should tell us if the problem is with the Wifi connection in combination with UM or if we should start looking for Lenovo G7780 related things.

#3

@samuvuo

Yes, you understand correctly. W7 is fine, both using the same path.

The HP nx6325 does not work with Mate 16.04. Spent hours with lots of help from here and somebody finally found a post that said it did in 14 and 15, but never in 16.

I did not try W7 in a VM on the G780. It didn’t seem to make sense.

#4

Lenovo G780 has a Broadcom wireless chip? They have 3 different drivers + some blacklisting is needed with at least one of them. Let’s find out what chip and what driver is needed (and what kernel driver / module is currently loadded). Command:

lspci | grep -i network

should give you output similar to this:

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Limited BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)

Use the bus info (numbers at the beginning) in the next step. Command:

lspci -vnn -s 02:00.0

should tell you more about the device in question - something like (this is from my Acer):

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Limited BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device [105b:e092]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
    Memory at 91100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: wl
    Kernel modules: bcma, wl

When we get that info, we continue from there.

#5

@samuvuo Thanks so much for the help, results are below:

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$ lspci | grep -i network
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$ lspci -vnn -s 02:00.0so much
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0032] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Lenovo AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter [17aa:3218]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at e0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
Expansion ROM at e0480000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities:
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
Kernel modules: ath9k

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$

Last night I did an R&R on the network settings and just checked it and it is running perfectly 100 sent, 100 received. So troubleshooting might be impossible.

— 192.168.0.1 ping statistics —
100 packets transmitted, 100 received, 0% packet loss, time 99162ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.584/3.208/98.749/9.664 ms

Thanks again , Fred

#7

This is what I like: good news first thing in the morning. :smiley:

Glad to hear it’s working. I consider good news also the fact that you have an Atheros chip, it tends to give less trouble than Broadcom offerings, which almost always require some tinkering.

Something to look into: if there are other wireless networks nearby, it’s possible that there are collisions that make your connection more unreliable (the dropped packages could be a result of this). To find out the least congested channel you can use an app - or just use command line. Replace “wlp2s0” below with your wireless interface (find that out with iwconfig).

sudo iwlist wlp2s0 scan | grep Frequency | sort | uniq -c | sort -n

Command above gives you a list of channels (frequencies) in use in the area, with number of networks using each channel listed in the first column. If you are interested in more info per network, you can use:

sudo iwlist wlp2s0 scan | grep -E "(ESSID|Frequency|Quality)"

and you will get SSIDs listed under their frequency and quality values.

As for picking the right channel… that’s a can of worms. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#8

@samuvuo Below are the results:

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$ sudo iwlist wlp2s0 scan | grep Frequency | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
sudo: unable to resolve host Lenovo-G780
[sudo] password for fred:
4 Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
fred@Lenovo-G780:~$

fred@Lenovo-G780:~$ sudo iwlist wlp2s0 scan | grep -E “(ESSID|Frequency|Quality)”
sudo: unable to resolve host Lenovo-G780
Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
Quality=70/70 Signal level=-19 dBm
ESSID:“F&B_Home”
Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
Quality=40/70 Signal level=-70 dBm
ESSID:“F&B_Home_2GEXT”
Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
Quality=70/70 Signal level=-37 dBm
ESSID:“DIRECT-roku-8726E4”
Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
Quality=42/70 Signal level=-68 dBm
ESSID:“DIRECT-roku-30015F”
fred@Lenovo-G780:~$

I live in the foothills of the Cascades and my closest neighbor is 300 yards/~meters away. I do not suffer from any channel interference.

Plus being a Windows user for years I have a package called InSSIDer that graphically maps, on the fly, all of WiFi channels in my house, so I really don’t have any problems in that respect.

My single biggest problem right now is that both of my brand new Netgear D7000 modem/router/wifi can not keep an Internet connect for more than a few hours.

I think until I can get that under control we should hold off on anymore effort on this “maybe” problem.