Very slow WiFi on a new Framework with Linux Mint

I just received and set up my Framework yesterday but this morning WiFi speed is really poor. I’m lucky to get 2 Mbps down when it should be around 35 Mbps. I’ve rebooted the router but there’s no change. Speeds on my Google Pixelbook are normal so there’s something going on with my Framework. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
My system specs are:
System:
Kernel: 5.15.0-52-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.12
tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Framework product: Laptop (12th Gen Intel Core) v: A4
serial:
Mobo: Framework model: FRANMACP04 v: A4 serial: UEFI: INSYDE v: 03.05
date: 08/23/2022
Battery:
ID-1: BAT1 charge: 54.6 Wh (100.0%) condition: 54.6/55.0 Wh (99.3%) volts: 17.5 min: 15.4
model: NVT Framewo serial: status: Not charging
CPU:
Info: 12-core (4-mt/8-st) model: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1240P bits: 64 type: MST AMCP
arch: Alder Lake rev: 3 cache: L1: 1.1 MiB L2: 9 MiB L3: 12 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 613 high: 943 min/max: 400/4400:3300 cores: 1: 400 2: 630 3: 581 4: 943
5: 437 6: 645 7: 400 8: 616 9: 428 10: 721 11: 448 12: 669 13: 732 14: 702 15: 716 16: 750
bogomips: 67584
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel ports: active: eDP-1
empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, DP-4 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:46a6
Device-2: Realtek Laptop Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-7:2 chip-ID: 0bda:5634
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2256x1504 s-dpi: 96
Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: BOE Display res: 2256x1504 dpi: 201 diag: 343mm (13.5")
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:51c8
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-52-generic running: yes
Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 160MHz driver: iwlwifi v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s
lanes: 1 bus-ID: a6:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2725
IF: wlp166s0 state: up mac:
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel AX210 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0032
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address:
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 19.86 GiB (2.1%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0 size: 931.51 GiB
speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: temp: 30.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 915.32 GiB used: 19.86 GiB (2.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 5.2 MiB (1.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 35.8 C mobo: 30.8 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
Packages: 2138 apt: 2132 flatpak: 6
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com vanessa main upstream import backport
2: deb http: //uk.mirror.nsec.pt/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
3: deb http: //uk.mirror.nsec.pt/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
4: deb http: //uk.mirror.nsec.pt/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
Processes: 358 Uptime: 40m Memory: 31.07 GiB used: 2.16 GiB (6.9%) Init: systemd v: 249
runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.3.0 alt: 11 Client: Cinnamon v: 5.4.12 inxi: 3.3.13

There is definitely a problem. I achieve normal speeds as per my review.
You might want to
Try another wifi network
Tether deom your phone
Boot from another linux usb stick
Contact support :sweat_smile:

There isn’t another WiFi network available. I’ll try the hot spot from my phone but that isn’t a fix. Would booting from another usb stick make a difference? Are you saying the ISO on my current stick could be corrupt? That would mean a complete reinstall which I would like to avoid.

I was hoping there would be a setting or change I could make.

It was running OK yesterday. I didn’t measure the speed but it seemed very quick. Not like today.

I guess it’s support time.

Great review by the way!

Hi @Tom_Husband,

What @Iann_C is suggesting is to provide a vanilla experience from which to see where the fault is happening.

  • Trying another wifi network for example, tells us if it connects perfectly that the fault is with the previous (home) wireless network.
  • Same principle with their tethering suggestion.
  • Booting from a live USB provides the ability to see if this is the operating system installation itself.

So I’d like to expand on this in a very duplicatable way.

  • Connecting to a different wireless network will immediately determine if this is a ISP/router issue or if it is your computer’s ability to provide expected speed. If at all possible, please try this and let me know if it’s the same or better.

Expanding on this, I recommend standing right in front of the router and test again. If the performance suddenly improves, this tells us it’s the wireless signal to your Framework. We would then consider whether this is antennae or router wireless strength/congestion/etc from there.

  • What is your terminal output for this command:

iwconfig

I’m looking for indications of drops and overall link quality.

To avoid overwhelming you with a ton of troubleshooting steps, let’s start off there first and see what we end up with.

Look forward to what your results are so we can get this figured out.

2 Likes

Thanks for the great reply. I think it’s my router signal. If I move within 10 feet the signal is much better. I’m now looking for a new router to replace my old MikroTik hAP ac Lite.

Here’s the output for iwconfig:

tom@tom-Laptop-12th-Gen-Intel-Core:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

wlp166s0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:“VoneusHome”
Mode:Managed Frequency:5.18 GHz Access Point: 08:55:31:BF:71:ED
Bit Rate=26 Mb/s Tx-Power=22 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on
Link Quality=34/70 Signal level=-76 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:34 Missed beacon:0

tom@tom-Laptop-12th-Gen-Intel-Core:~$

I think this can probably be considered solved as I’m sure it’s a router issue.

Thanks all for the help.

1 Like

One thing we can test with and can easily be reverted if it doesn’t help is changing the power save feature for your wireless.

Please open a terminal and run this command:

sudo sed -i 's/wifi.powersave = 3/wifi.powersave = 2/' /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

This will change the power save setting from 3 to 2. Then reboot your Framework, run iwconfig again and it should display Power Management:off

This may help, it may not help at all. But I’ve seen examples where it has and does provide a bit truer performance.

If it does nothing, we can always change it back with:

sudo sed -i 's/wifi.powersave = 2/wifi.powersave = 3/' /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

Yes, thanks, I did that and it stopped WiFi all together so I changed it back. I’m convinced now that it’s the router not having a strong enough signal. If I move a little closer the signal is fine although my other laptop (Pixelbook) doesn’t have the issue at all.

Oof, yeah there is no way is should have stopped the wifi altogether. I think looking into another router may be a good starting point.

1 Like

Doesn’t this sounds more like you established the Framework laptop has an issue where your other laptop does not?

It would be great to have an update for the forms as this is not the first time I’m seeing this issue mentioned.

Also for anyone on Fedora iwconfig was removed in F36 Changes/RemoveWirelessExtensions - Fedora Project Wiki

I can highly recommend wavemon and nmcli

I don’t think it’s a Framework issue anymore. In my home location where I’m seeing a lower WiFi signal my Pixelbook performs slightly better than my Framework but not enough to quibble about really. If I’m closer to the router the signal is very strong (stronger than my Pixelbook).

I changed to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS from Linux Mint so maybe that helped?

Thanks for the Wavemon tip, I’ll look into that.

1 Like

Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS’ historically, but, I believe Mint does some additional things under the hood if memory serves.

Wavemon is epic - great tool.

1 Like

Yes , it looks very handy. The installation looks a little intimidating to this new guy though.

I assume you can find it in Mints repositories. It was in the Fedora repo, also I saw this on the github page under where to obtain.

Apart from debian/ubuntu packages (apt-cache search wavemon) and slackbuild scripts for wavemon, this repository contains the full source code.

Yep, ditto everything Usernames just said. :slight_smile: