Small WiFi Fix

[EvilDragon]

Well, more work on WiFi has been done and we are currently betatesting a new firmware for the WiFi module.


This is only a first step of more fixes to come, but we'd like to see how it behaves on units which have big WiFi problems.


skeezix unit, e.g. didn't connect to WiFi at all and now runs with 400KB/s.


On another unit however, nothing changed.


So we'd like to get some more users to test it - especially users who have stability issues.


We're still working on this and therefore do not want to make it public yet, but if you're one of the users having stability issues, please send me a PM.


As said, this does not fix all issues, but it's a first start of improving WiFi.

 

[milkshake]

I have always had speed issues I posted the bug on the bug tracker http://bugs.openpandora.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=140 I would love to beta test this.

 

[Vorporeal]

I'd definitely beta test it - my wifi is quite spotty.

 

[Holliefant]

Ok after one night surfing I can conclude that this patch made my Pandora a better device, my WLAN wasn´t really working before, it was so bad that I didn´t even Browse with my Pandora. Now I can download with 200-400 Kb/s and browse without waiting for the site to build up. Thx a lot

 

[MarioPandio]

Gave this a brief try without altering wifi channels or wpa/wep etc.


Saw a minor speed increase on a couple of downloads, from always <60kB/s to about 105kB/s at the start of downloads that slowed down to usual speeds. No difference good or bad to connection stability, which for me was fixed with Notaz driver fix.


I then did the following from the old forums thread on this beta test :

# turn power saving on to test

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power on

# do a small ping to "warm up" the module.  This is required for power save mode, other wise the first few packets tend to get lost.  Ignore the output of this

sudo ping 192.168.1.254 -s 1500 -c 4

# an actual test, note this output!

sudo ping 192.168.1.254 -s 1500 -c 1000 -f

# turn power saving off and try again

sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off

sudo ping 192.168.1.254 -s 1500 -c 1000 -f

Replace the ip with your own router's IP of course. This'll give some standardized statistics of both power off and power on mode, as well as an approximate transfer speed (1000*1500*2/(time/100))


----------------------------


My results:


mariopandio-openpandora:~$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 power on


mariopandio-openpandora:~$ sudo ping 192.168.2.1 -s 1500 -c 4


Password:


PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 1500(1528) bytes of data.


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=87.2 ms


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=55.0 ms


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=78.5 ms


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=86.3 ms


--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---


4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3024ms


rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 55.085/76.828/87.280/13.007 ms


mariopandio-openpandora:~$ sudo ping 192.168.2.1 -s 1500 -c 1000 -f


PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 1500(1528) bytes of data.


...........................................................................


--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---


1000 packets transmitted, 774 received, 22% packet loss, time 20403ms


rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 41.870/2060.139/4028.565/604.238 ms, pipe 135, ipg/ewma 20.423/3356.041 ms


mariopandio-openpandora:~$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off


mariopandio-openpandora:~$ sudo ping 192.168.2.1 -s 1500 -c 4


PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 1500(1528) bytes of data.


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=30.7 ms


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=38.9 ms


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=31.6 ms


1508 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=38.9 ms


--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---


4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3038ms


rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 30.731/35.064/38.971/3.896 ms


mariopandio-openpandora:~$ sudo ping 192.168.2.1 -s 1500 -c 1000 -f


PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 1500(1528) bytes of data.


...........................................................................


--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---


1000 packets transmitted, 765 received, 23% packet loss, time 20429ms


rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 42.633/2355.891/3547.455/1029.712 ms, pipe 175, ipg/ewma 20.449/3004.528 ms


Will re test other channels etc later

 

[WizardStan]

22% packet loss :blink:


That's really quite insane. I don't know what to say about that. And with maximum ping time of 4 seconds?!?! There is something very very not right with that.


Maybe your router didn't like the flood. Or intentionally ignored, some routers have anti ping flood measures.


Try the ping again without the -f argument. It'll take a lot longer, but shouldn't give your router a heart attack. Hopefully that's all it is.

 

[MarioPandio]

:lol:


Yeah I was like wtf? Had upto 35% too :lol:


Anyway I thought it maybe because my wife was streaming Masterchef on iPlayer at the time (it was downloaded though) but nah, its as you said, 'the flood' (MasterChief smiley)!


Retried with both new and old driver and without the -f argument, its zero packet loss, so no worries


I've not noticed any gains in stability (still have to refresh pages several times to get them to load sometimes) or accidental speed boost (which was not the Beta tests aims but a handy bonus for those that did gain)so I'm still <60kB/s ftw :rolleyes:

 

[Vorporeal]

Yeah, didn't help me either. I didn't do a thorough or quantitative test, but it kinda felt like it was worse than the older firmware. Not totally sure, but it definitely didn't fix anything.

 

[azrael]

Hi EvilDragon,


I received my Pandora a few days ago. Thanks for this, it's great


WiFi is always a problem:


- speed is always slower than 100 KB/sec


- on all big downloads (> 10 MB) the Wifi connection was lost (powersave on) and couldn't be reestablished without toggling wifi off and on again.


So I would like to test the WiFi fix. Where can I find it?


Kind regards,


Azrael

 

[sebt3]

couldn't be reestablished without toggling wifi off and on again.

That was fixed with HF4. Are you sure you are running lastest fix ?


About speed, try messing with your wifi-router settings

 

[MarioPandio]

Welcome to the boards Azrael!


Wifi can be a nagging issue that will get itself sorted soon enough (like my fussy cat called Azrael, who's declining interception of 3 different types of dry snacks and 4 different flavours of catmeat, whilst her siblings get fatter still) or my names not MarioPandio and the owners of this machine, shan't be brought to their knees and begged to sort it out on my whinging behalf!


Why they'll be no birthdays/holidays/quality time or investor talk on my watch till the proles have gotten decent wifi dagnammit!


As an aside note, I had several days of unstable internet despite choosing to revert to the older wifi firmware and I had to re-install the chromium PND and Firefox to avoid getting messages that the pages had hung and required killing, which was an entirely new thing, as I only kill religious texts normally :rolleyes:

 

[azrael]

That was fixed with HF4. Are you sure you are running lastest fix ?


About speed, try messing with your wifi-router settings

Ok, I did not realized that it is included in Hotfix 4, thanks for the info.


And yes, I installed HotFix 4 twice, so it should definitely reside on my pandora


I always lose the Wifi connection on big downloads with powersave on, when I tried with turned off powersave for WiFi everything was ok. Of cause the latter had a negative effect on battery life.


I have a Fritzbox that scans for conflicting Wifi networks and chooses an appropriate channel, so I think this should work.