WiFi slow/ dropping

Hardware Support
1

Hi, I'm new to Zorin OS 18 Core. I installed it on a new computer. I noticed a few things weren't going so well with the internet/WiFi. I haven't tested anything with a wired connection, but I could, if you would recommend it.

There have been several times when my web browser says, "Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site." I have to keep trying again a few times. Then it loads the page. Sometimes Zorin OS says I am disconnected from WiFi internet for a short time. Then it goes away. I'm getting of oddities on running Youtube videos. About 99% of the time it's fine, but I seem to have some hiccups in Youtube videos, that is, the audio sounds a bit odd or garbled for less than one second. That's pretty bad with running a video at 360p. Files like 200kb PNG pictures load slower than on Windows. My internet speed test is getting values way lower than my Windows laptop using the same router. I have checked the "Software&Updates" program, with, "Additional Drivers." It says, "no additional drivers available." I wonder if it has to do with something pretty important within the software/hardware or maybe DNS.

2

Welcome to the Forum!

It would be good to have that as a Comparision to see if there are the same Issues.

Some Questions:

  • Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled?
  • If Windows is still installed: Is Fast Start-Up in Windows disabled?
  • Does Your System run in Wayland or X11? You can check that with the Terminal Command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
  • What Kernel is in Use? You can check that with uname -r in Terminal
  • Could You post the Output of the Commands sudo lshw -C network and rfkill list please?
3

No dual-booting with Windows.

SecureBoot disabled


kernel: 6.17.0-14-generic

Wayland

sudo lshw - C network reveals:

*-network                 
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: enp2s0
       version: 15
       serial: a8:2b:dd:4c:b9:df
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=6.17.0-14-generic firmware=rtl8168h-2_0.0.2 02/26/15 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:49 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:80804000-80804fff memory:80800000-80803fff
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RTL8852CE PCIe 802.11ax Wireless Network Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlp3s0
       version: 01
       serial: 14:b5:cd:4d:29:a7
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtw89_8852ce driverversion=6.17.0-14-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.0.109 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:66 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:80700000-807fffff

rfkill list reveals:

0: tpacpi_bluetooth_sw: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
5: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
4

Have you disabled powersave? The newer wifi6 driver is known to be a bit unstable with powersave

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi-powersave.conf

Change value to 2

[connection]
wifi.powersave = 2

Tap ctl+o to overwrite, enter to save as current configuration, then ctl+x to exit the editor.
The change will take effect on reboot or network service restart.

4 Likes
5

Go to Zorin OS settings, then "Software & Updates," and click on "Network" and then "Network Manager." Click on the "Reset" button. This will reset your network manager to its default state.

6

Maybe try it with the older Kernel. On the GRUB Menu on Start-Up choose ''Advanced Options'' and there take the Option with the 6.14 Kernel and check if it works again.

Could be a Point, too. You could try it with switching to X11/Xorg. To do that, go to the Login Screen. click on Your Profile so that the Password Field appears. When it is appeared, You should see a Gear Icon in the bottom right Corner. Click on it and choose the Option ''Zorin Desktop on Xorg'' and then log in.

7

Good news. I tried this first, since it was the first reply. The file that you said to change was really under the file name "default-wifi-powersave-on.conf" I changed it as you said. The network speed test is much better. I have feeling this solved my problem!

1 Like
8

I am detecting a new, perhaps unrelated, problem. I was watching a Youtube video, and I loaded a web page with like 800kb worth of info/picture files. The sound on the Youtube video gets garbled for a second. This happens even more when I loaded something with many more megabytes. I really didn't get this on any computer I've used. It feels like a problem that occurs when the CPU is maxing out. But that was the old days. This CPU is not maxing out.

9

What about Hardware Acceleration in the browser? Have you tried disabling it?

10

The performance setting/hardware acceleration setting on Firefox doesn't seem to change the problem. I am starting to think this is some type of a software problem. I'm not sure if there is a better way to post this in a subforum/thread about software.

11

This!

I just went through this, buffering videos slow websites. Slow speeds on speedtest.

I set it to 2 and my LAN came to life. I have nice hardware "680 Mb/s (5.8 GHz)" atm, and now it's snappy like it should be.

1 Like
12

Could this be a problem with bluetooth headphones? It is sound-related.

13

I think just my bluetooth headphones are getting the problem with the sound. Maybe some sort of software problem is sending a bad signal to the bluetooth headphones just when I try to use more internet downloading (and/or CPU?)

14

Sometimes there can be interferences between bluetooth and wlan. You could test if it solves your problem when you switch to 5 GHz in your wlan router settings.

15

I think I've been having success with sudo systemctl restart bluetooth and/or restarting it with the settings controls