Realtek and encrypted wifi?

[tkmm]

I have a Belkin wifi adapter with an rtl chipset. It can connect to my WPA network, but it drops the connection frequently. If I plug in an old SMC WUSBG adapter everything works fine. Is there a reason that RTL chipsets seem to have issue with WPA? Does anyone here know whether the internal wifi adapter in my laptop(rtl8188ee) will have this problem with my encrypted networks when support for it is released in Mga4?

I'm annoyed that I can't use the wifi adapter with the rtl chip as it is smaller and I cannot use my other USB ports with the SMC.

[alf]

Had similar problems with the rt61-driver some times ago. Disabling the powermangement of the device solved the problem.

[tkmm]

Thank you ever so much! I stumbled upon something similar earlier mentioning power management. I replugged my Belkin and iwconfig shows Power Management is off.

If I attempt to change the power settings I get

Code: Select all

[root@localhost]# iwconfig wlan0 power off
Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

lsusb

Code: Select all

Bus 001 Device 006: ID 050d:2103 Belkin Components F7D2102 802.11n N300 Micro Wireless Adapter v3000 [Realtek RTL8192CU]


lsmod |grep 8192

Code: Select all

[root@localhost]# lsmod |grep 8192
rtl8192cu              97968  0
rtlwifi               111286  1 rtl8192cu
rtl8192c_common        70578  1 rtl8192cu
mac80211              516080  4 rtlwifi,zd1211rw,rtl8192c_common,rtl8192cu
usbcore               218676  9 uvcvideo,rtlwifi,usb_storage,ehci_hcd,ehci_pci,usbhid,zd1211rw,rtl8192cu,xhci_hcd


[tkmm]

iwconfig for the adapter thats spotty:

Code: Select all

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"My Network" 
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 00:1C:DF:BE:61:77   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=64/70  Signal level=-46 dBm 
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0


iwconfig for the working one

Code: Select all

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"My Network" 
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 00:1C:DF:BE:61:77   
          Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=60/100  Signal level=60/100 
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:1  Invalid misc:19   Missed beacon:0


I tried changing the rate and txpower via iwconfig, but it didn't seem to make much difference nor stay persistent...

What is going on??

[doktor5000]

Can you please post lspcidrake -v excerpt for both adapters so we can see the PCI IDs?

[tkmm]

Code: Select all

[tkmm@localhost ~]$ lspcidrake -v |grep rtl
rtl8192cu       : Realtek|Belkin Wireless Adapter (vendor:050d device:2103)

[tkmm@localhost ~]$ lspcidrake -v |grep SMC
zd1211rw        : SMC|USB2.0 WLAN (vendor:083a device:4505)

I've noticed some voodoo happening: if I plug the Belkin into a USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 slot it responds better. I still need to manually change the bit rate from 18 to 54M and I usually set rts off(I dont know if thats neccessary). Why would the USB version make any difference?