[RESPONDED] Possible Causes for Slow Wi-Fi Performance: Troubleshooting and Seeking Solutions

Community Support
1

Hello everyone,

I recently received a framework laptop with i5-11th gen as a gift from my brother that was purchased in Germany. Initially, I was excited about it, but my happiness was short-lived when I noticed that the Wi-Fi performance was extremely slow. In fact, my half a decade old phone and laptop performs 10 times better than my FW in the same room. I get 2-3MB speed regardless of my distance to the router, when other devices get up to 50mb effortlessly.

I installed Ubuntu to see if it was an issue with the Windows 10 operating system, but the problem persisted. I even tried using my old MediaTek Wi-Fi card, which didn’t solve the issue. I also tried replacing the antenna cables, but that didn’t work either.

The laptop has an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi card, which interestingly works perfectly when used on another laptop. At this point, I am unsure what is causing the problem. I have ruled out the Wi-Fi card, the operating system, and the antenna cables.

Could it be a faulty motherboard that is causing the issue?

I would appreciate any insights or advice on how to troubleshoot and resolve this problem. Thank you all for your time and support.

2

Hello!

Did you try the solution suggested in Very slow WiFi on a new Framework with Linux Mint - #6 by Matt_Hartley?

Did you install the Windows drivers from Framework?

I doubt that the motherboard is faulty.

3

I have tried both drivers for Windows, first original ones come with the driver bundle, then latest drivers. Did not solve the issue.

4

What’s your router/network setup?

Which bands does the laptop connect to with the router?

Also, when using Windows or Linux, what do the event/kernel-logs say? Anything related to wifi?

1 Like
5

The router is 2.4ghz only.
Link speed is 130MBS.

I have tried changing the router settings, restarting it, trying several channels, nothing has changed.

Also installed drivers from Intel Driver Support.

Don’t know much about Linux, but I have the USB with me, are there any commands I can run that gives the results might be helpful to solve the issue?

7

For Windows, check the Event Viewer.
For Linux, dmesg -w in the console and/or journactl.

Are both connections from and to the laptop slow? If you transfer a file to it via network, is it slow or fast?

8

I will try those once I get home.
Not only the speed, but also the signaling is weak too.

It shows 1-2 lines signal on windows, and all other devices shows 4-5. Even with other antenna and wifi card, and even on linux it’s still a terrible signaling.

9

Did you double-check that the antennas are securely attached to the wifi module in the computer? Have a look on the Framework support site on how to install/replace the wifi module for info on how to get at the unit and how it’s supposed to connect to the antennas.

10

Yes, followed the instructions. I have installed antennas many times, I can confirm they are properly seated. I also tried different antennas, the connection quality was identical.

11

99% of the time, this has to do with how the card is receiving your wifi signal. All of that said:

  • Double check your card connections themselves.
  • On Ubuntu or Fedora, run this - just copy and paste the code block into a terminal, then copy and paste the results back here.
interface=$(nmcli -t -f active,device d wifi list | grep '^yes' | cut -d':' -f2)
echo -e "\n        \033[1;33mInterface: $interface\033[0m"
signal_strength=$(iw dev $interface link | awk '/signal/ {print $2}')
echo -e "        \033[1;33mSignal strength: $signal_strength\033[0m"
signal_quality=$(nmcli d wifi list ifname $interface | grep '*' | awk '{print $8}')
echo -e "        \033[1;33mSignal quality: $signal_quality\033[0m"
signal_bars=$(nmcli -t -f active,bars d wifi list | grep '^yes' | awk -F: '{print $2}')
echo -e "        \033[1;33mSignal bars: $signal_bars\033[0m"
speed=$(nmcli -t -f IN-USE,RATE dev wifi list | grep '*' | awk -F: '{print $2}')
echo -e "        \033[1;33mWi-Fi Speed: $speed\033[0m"

If connecting to mesh, it will vary and you may see signal going from 100 to normal as it self-adjusts.

But do post the output here.

Mine for example is:

    Interface: wlo1
    Signal strength: -45
    Signal quality: 75
    Signal bars: ▂▄▆_
    Wi-Fi Speed: 270 Mbit/s

This isn’t permement, but worth trying for troubleshooting - we can make:

sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi

sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=8

See if things improve with speed here.

If not, try again this time using 1 instead of 8.

You also indicated getting this from Germany. Might be worth checking the following in a terminal as well:

sudo iw reg get

Then share that output as well.