Linux – Wifi very slow on Linux Mint 17, works fine on Windows

linuxlinux-mintwifi-driverwireless-networking

My wifi is working just fine on Windows in my new ASUS X450L notebook but is unbearably slow (often becoming unresponsible) on my dual boot Linux Mint 17. I believe it is a problem with the drivers.

uname -a
Linux bernardes-PC 3.13.0-37-generic #64-Ubuntu SMP Mon Sep 22 21:28:38 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

lshw -class network

WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
  *-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: QCA8171 Gigabit Ethernet
       vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 10
       serial: 10:c3:7b:c1:ee:7f
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=alx latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:63 memory:f7900000-f793ffff ioport:e000(size=128)
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
       vendor: Ralink corp.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlan1
       version: 00
       serial: 54:35:30:57:2a:39
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.13.0-37-generic firmware=0.37 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:19 memory:f7810000-f781ffff
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 2
       bus info: usb@1:1.3
       logical name: wlan2
       serial: 64:70:02:2d:9e:f1
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k_htc driverversion=3.13.0-37-generic firmware=1.3 ip=192.168.10.101 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
WARNING: output may be incomplete or inaccurate, you should run this program as super-user.

The important part:

       product: RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
       vendor: Ralink corp.

I am kind of lost as I am not very experienced with network/drivers magic in Unix.

Best Answer

This tutorial explained how to fix the problem:

http://www.dailylinuxnews.com/blog/2014/09/install-ralink-rt3290-wifi-driver-in-ubuntu-linuxmint-elementaryos/

From the link:

  1. Before installing we need to install the package called dkms which can be done by running the following command,

     sudo apt-get install dkms

  2. Download the package from this link at your own risk.

  3. Now open terminal and browse to the directory to which you downloaded the file in the previous step. Lets say that you downloaded it to your “Downloads” directory. If so then you can browse to the “Downloads” directory by running the following command,

     cd $HOME/Downloads

  4. First we have to extract the file rt3290sta-2.6.0.0.dkms.tar into the directory /usr/src. To do that, run the following command from the directory which has the tar file

     sudo tar -xvf rt3290sta-2.6.0.0.dkms.tar -C /usr/src

  5. Browse to /usr/src directory,

     cd /usr/src

  6. Now we install the patched driver using the following command,

     sudo dkms install -m rt3290sta -v 2.6.0.0 --force

  7. Restart the computer and the WiFi should be working.

Steps to Remove

In case if this issue is fixed in the kernel and then you want to to remove the patched driver completely, run the following command and restart the system.

sudo dkms remove rt3290sta/2.6.0.0 --all

Note:

If you face problem after a kernel update, then remove the driver, reboot the system and then install the driver, reboot the system again.

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