Framework 16 7840HS w/ 7700s
MT7922 on driver MT7921e
Fedora 44, Kernel 6.19.14-300, BIOS 4.04
My wifi speed is obnoxiously erratic, but only in Fedora. I’m not sure when it started, but it is definitely not new. It’s most easily seen when downloading a large file. Speed will spike up to 10-12 MB/s for a few seconds, then drop to around 1MB/s for a few seconds, then spike back up, then down, in a very consistent pattern. However, when I download the same exact file in Windows (I dual boot), it is max speed the whole way. It affects everything, including regular web browsing such that sometimes a page loads immediately, sometimes there’s a delay before the page snaps together like nothing was wrong.
I don’t even know where to begin debugging this. Any hints?
The community zeitgeist is that the linux mediatek drivers can be kinda flaky. It seems to also depend on the access point, and also which particular WiFi standard it uses - 4, 6, 6E.
I can’t say I’ve seen this in my particular case on a FW13 7040 so same wifi/bluetooth adapter, also on Fedora 44. Maybe my WiFi-4 and -6 access points (also Mediatek based FWIW) play a role here.
By the way, get that kernel updated - vulnerability mitigations have been fast and furious in the past few days. We’re currently, in Fedora anyway and depending on how you count, at the fourth backport of security fixes for the “single” latest upstream version of 7.0.9.
Edit: One possibly interesting thing to try is to run wavemon on a terminal during that test download. See what it reports for tx/rx rates and other parameters.
Also, perhaps as a better/different experiment, try cloudflare’s speed test.
I’ll just chime in to say on my FW13 7040 on Fedora, switching to an Intel AX210 card performed much better. Someone else in that thread also saw better performance on a FW16.
Is your ap unifi by chance? In any case, those mediatek cards are trash. I haven’t used one in my 16 for at least a year, but it performed the same way in Linux back when I did.
You’re not alone. I am facing similar problem with my Lenevo laptop(Fedora 44). It happened after I updated to new kernel 7.0.9-202.fc44. Using previous kernel 7.0.9-200.fc44 on grub boot menu solves the problem for now.
It’s either something to do with latest Mediatek drivers being not compatible with Linux kernel or other way around.
Got it, done.
Great idea. Did that, and it shows up there too. Stalls in Fedora, flies through in Windows.
Yeah, I see a lot of people go that route, but I’m not quite there yet. So far it’s only been a minor nuisance, and I gotta imagine this will get cleared up eventually.
It actually is! AP AC Pro. Think there could be something the Linux driver does that bothers a Unifi AP specifically?
That’s quite interesting. I have been experiencing this for at least a few weeks, and I only just now caught up to kernel 7.
1 Like
I think so. It seems most who have problems with this card (me included), are running unifi APs.
I haven’t had this card in my 16 for over a year now, but back when it was in use it would fluctuate speed wildly, and would even completely stop working until i unloaded the kernel modules and reloaded them.
Also of note, my wife’s (ASUS) laptop also had the same card, running windows, and would do the same thing; completely die until she rebooted (no idea if or how I could unload and reload the driver without reboot like on linux).
We replaced the wifi cards in both laptops with a Quallcom QCNCM865 card that has been stable:
05:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc WCN785x Wi-Fi 7(802.11be) 320MHz 2x2 [FastConnect 7800] (rev 01)
EDIT: It appears Framework is marking my post as spam. Do we have a rampaging activist mod again or are we not supposed to help each other?
So I had been running only the 2.4GHz radio, though I can’t remember why. Anyway, I turned on the 5GHz radio and tried that network, and I don’t see any stalling, speed drops, etc. So seems to be only an issue with the 2.4GHz network, at least in my case. Interesting, but workable, I guess. My house is small.