# Need to keep restarting rtl8187 wifi to keep throughput

## ihtruelsen

I have a rtl8187 based wifi card built into my laptop:

```

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter

```

It has worked well enough, but recently I have noticed that after a little time, sometimes as little as a minute, the max download rate drops to about 20 KB/s. If I restart the adapter using /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 restart, the download rate goes back up to 600KB/s.

I am not sure how to go about diagnosing the problem. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

```

Portage 2.1.10.13 (default/linux/x86/10.0, gcc-4.5.3, glibc-2.13-r4, 3.0.0-gentoo i686)

=================================================================

System uname: Linux-3.0.0-gentoo-i686-AMD_Athlon-tm-_X2_Dual-Core_QL-60-with-gentoo-2.0.3

Timestamp of tree: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:15:01 +0000

ccache version 3.1.6 [enabled]

app-shells/bash:          4.2_p10

dev-java/java-config:     2.1.11-r3

dev-lang/python:          2.7.2-r2, 3.2-r2

dev-util/ccache:          3.1.6

dev-util/cmake:           2.8.5-r2

dev-util/pkgconfig:       0.26

sys-apps/baselayout:      2.0.3

sys-apps/openrc:          0.9.2

sys-apps/sandbox:         2.5

sys-devel/autoconf:       2.13, 2.68

sys-devel/automake:       1.9.6-r3, 1.11.1-r1

sys-devel/binutils:       2.21.1-r1

sys-devel/gcc:            4.5.3-r1

sys-devel/gcc-config:     1.4.1-r1

sys-devel/libtool:        2.4-r1

sys-devel/make:           3.82-r1

sys-kernel/linux-headers: 2.6.39 (virtual/os-headers)

sys-libs/glibc:           2.13-r4

Repositories: gentoo enlightenment

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"

ACCEPT_LICENSE="*"

CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=k8 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/lib/hsqldb"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/php/apache2-php5.3/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5.3/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5.3/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo"

CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=k8 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs ccache distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch"

FFLAGS=""

GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org"

LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"

LINGUAS="en en_GB"

MAKEOPTS="-j3"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/var/lib/layman/enlightenment"

SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

USE="aac acl acpi alsa berkdb bluetooth bzip2 cli cracklib crypt cups cxx dri dvdr fortran gdbm gpm iconv modules mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly openmp pam pcre perl pppd python readline session smp ssl sysfs tcpd truetype unicode x86 xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="kexi words flow plan stage tables krita karbon braindump" CAMERAS="ptp2" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="synaptics evdev keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en en_GB" PHP_TARGETS="php5-3" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="radeon vesa fbdev" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account"

Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS 

```

----------

## davidm

Hmm.  I used to have a laptop which ran into this problem with that same hardware.  Unfortunately I no longer have that hardware to experiment.  But I can tell you that reducing the speed seemed to help a little bit although it did not completely fix it.  Also the issue occured for me on an older Gentoo kernel (maybe a year ago) then when I switched to Arch Linux for a while it didn't do it.  Finally when I switched back to Gentoo on the laptop again (under a different kernel) it was okay.  So this seems to suggest at times the issue is kernel dependent or possibly related to respective settings?

Good luck.  I recall Googling it for days and could find no definite explanation back then.  Hopefully better info exists now.

----------

