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Debian8: weak wifi signal on thinkpad T60 comparing with windows
Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2015 10:08 pm
by arabianights
hi,
i have a winXP/debian8/freebsd triple boot setup on my thinkpad t60. it comes with an integrated wi-fi card. i noticed whenever i web browsing in Debian8, it takes several seconds to load a page, in windows xp, it loads/refreshes page almost immediately. i use the laptop at the exact same location at home on the same wi-fi network.
it makes me think debian8 has a weak wifi signal comparing with windows but i have no way to test whether this is indeed the case.
Re: Debian8: weak wifi signal on thinkpad T60 comparing with windows
Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2015 11:18 pm
by ajkula66
If your T60 sports Intel 3945ABG which was the most common wireless card in these machines, then yes, it will pretty much misbehave in any *nix distro.
Truth be told, it's an atrocious card to begin with. Moving on to something with an Atheros chipset would do you a world of good in *nix environments.
Good luck.
Re: Debian8: weak wifi signal on thinkpad T60 comparing with windows
Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2015 11:59 pm
by arabianights
correct, that's the wi-fi card on my T60.
i've noticed the slow loading of webpage in linux before but didn't realize it's caused by the integrated wi-fi until recently.
i plugged in a Netgear w511 wifi card pulled from my old T23, installed linux driver, seems working better now.
Re: Debian8: weak wifi signal on thinkpad T60 comparing with windows
Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 12:03 am
by ajkula66
You can pick up an Atheros-chipped card with a FRU for under $10, a bit more if you want the "N" version which is FRU 42T0825.
Or, if you don't mind applying modded BIOS, go for Atheros 9380 which is the card that I have in all of my machines that sport a mini-PCI-e format.
Re: Debian8: weak wifi signal on thinkpad T60 comparing with windows
Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 11:19 am
by arabianights
ajkula66 wrote:You can pick up an Atheros-chipped card with a FRU for under $10, a bit more if you want the "N" version which is FRU 42T0825.
Or, if you don't mind applying modded BIOS, go for Atheros 9380 which is the card that I have in all of my machines that sport a mini-PCI-e format.
thank you for the advice!
I'll look into it once I got time. to be honest, after extensive and very time consuming messing around with my old t23/t42 in previous years, now i'm just happy to have a working laptop
Re: Debian8: weak wifi signal on thinkpad T60 comparing with windows
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 10:38 am
by jaspen-meyer
iwconfig will tell your your signal strength. You have to be root to run that in debian.
Code: Select all
jaspen@meyer:~$ sudo iwconfig
eth1 no wireless extensions.
wwan0 no wireless extensions.
lo no wireless extensions.
wlan1 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.452 GHz Access Point:
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=2 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=48/70 Signal level=-62 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:136 Missed beacon:0
Note this line:
Link Quality=48/70 Signal level=-62 dBm
My x61s was using the Intel 3945ABG without problems in Xubuntu 14.04.
I replaced it with an Intel 5100 today but haven't used it enough to know if there is any difference, and didn't
run any benchmarks to measure changes.