0

Ever since I installed Linux on my laptop I have been having problems with the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 wireless card.

  1. I tried several different Linux distros including Ubuntu, Manjaro, Solus and now I am on Arch and on every single one the network connection stops working on its own after a few minutes or after I break it.

  2. I found a GitHub repo with firmware-5/6.bin files and replaced mine with them but it didn't work either.

  3. What I noticed is after running speedtest.net just before it goes to upload test it receives a socket error and then the link breaks (WiFi is still connected but pinging or opening anything doesn't work).

  4. On Windows everything is working fine.

eleventyone
  • 807
GuestThrowAway
  • 13

2 Answers2

1

Well, avoiding 5GHz networks is a workaround. However, for a more suitable solution try following my answer here https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/606511/361403

I have the feeling you're experiencing the same issue.

mrfree
  • 421
0

I finally managed to solve the problem!

Big thanks goes to @mrfree for sparking the idea and giving me the first instruction on where to search for the answer!

First part will be how I troubleshooted the problem and on the end will be the solution.

My Troubleshooting Process:

After reading @mrfree 's answer I remembered reading something similar about 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz connections on some other thread a long time ago. So I connected to my router and saw that both 5.0Ghz and 2.4Ghz connections were active. I wanted to check out what would happen if I switched one of them off and kept the other one on.

What happend was that 2.4Ghz connection was working with no problems but 5.0Ghz connection showed same symptoms as I had before so I figured connecting with 2.4Ghz to my network would work.

Afterwards I read on some website that allegedly linux had issues with 2.4Ghz connections before but since 5.0Ghz connections, 2.4Ghz was working and 5.0 had problems.

The Solution:

In order to connect with 2.4Ghz I did the following (I am using NetworkManager):

I needed to find out my BSSID of 2.4Ghz channel and connect with it to the network.

  1. I Installed sudo pacman -S wireless-tools because I needed iwlist
  2. I ran iwlist wlp2s0 scanning | grep -C3 <your network name> This didn't show me the BSSID but I knew which "cell" I have to look for.
  3. I ran iwlist wlp2s0 scanning and looked for the cell with the same channel, for me it was the first one.
  4. I copied the Address.
  5. I right-clicked on the network icon on the lower right corner of my laptop screen and clicked on "configure network connections".
  6. I left my mode on infrastructure and copied my BSSID into BSSID field. After that I just turned off the WIFI and turned it back on and everything was working.

Obviusly the speed isn't as great but it finally works!!!

I hope this could help others as it helped me!

GuestThrowAway
  • 13