# Atheros Chipset Low Signal Strength.

## meeseontheleese

I recently purchased a netgear wg311T pci card for my computer so i would be able to use wifi for my newly built linux desktop. The drivers were far easier to set up then my ralink, but the problem is i find my signal strength is terribly low.  i get highs of 30/70 for signal quality, but thats the highest Ive seen.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and i will give any information needed.

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## didymos

Well, how well does the connection work?  And what sort of antenna have you got on each end?  

A few more things to check:

1. The txpower - is at the max for the card?

2.  The channel - are nearby access points using the same one?

3.  XR mode -  try enabling it via "iwpriv ath0 xr 1".

4.  The actual data rate - what is it, is it generally stable, and do you really need greater speeds?

Lastly, what iwconfig reports is not the same thing as the "Signal Strength" meters you see in Windows and such.  For one, those things are often pretty arbitrary. For two, what iwconfig is actually showing is the RSSI over the noise floor.  It's not a fraction and it doesn't mean you're quality is, in your reported best case, 43%. See here for more: 

http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/RSSI

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## Urban Cowboy

Obvious question.. where it your computer in relation to the wifi signal?

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## meeseontheleese

as of now, it is almost in direct sight of the router. I am downstairs in a room opposite to where the router is.

1.tx power is showing 18dbm.

2. Im on channel 5 which seems to garner the best link quality.

3. tried xrl mode and it says interface doesnt accept private ioctl... xr (8BE0): invalid arguement. (way to fix this?)

4. my main worry is being able to do my usual tasks. (web surfing, IM, irc, updating my system, p2p for school work, and well, not school work...)

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## meeseontheleese

also, sorry for the double post, but i also recently moved my computer desk to the previously mentioned position, and it garners 38/70 now.   Also, the main issue ive seen so far has been time outs, and thus forth the main reason behind my questions. When i try to run say pidgin, and/or firefox, I find that my system seems to time out really easy. This hinders access, in pidgins case, to msn, yahoo, and gtalk. 

last but not least, but looking at the back of my computer, the lights on my wifi card are not steady, but instead blinking. not as in access blinking, but incremental, on and off blinks.

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## didymos

Hmm, maybe the chipset on that card doesn't support xr.   "iwpriv ath0 | grep xr" will tell you if it does for sure, but probably not since the command failed.  As to the blinking and timeouts, it might be the periodic background scans of available APs.  If you're only ever connecting to one AP, you should turn that off:

```

iwpriv ath0 bgscan 0

```

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## meeseontheleese

i believe it does 

```

Pingu ~ # iwpriv ath0 | grep xr

          xr               (0023) : set   1 int   & get   0      

          get_xr           (0023) : set   0       & get   1 int  

Pingu ~ # 

```

I ran the command and for some reason the lights still blink the same manner, on, off, on, off repeat.  

Time outs are still an issue as well. It seems, when it comes to browsing, unless the webpage is in a cache or has been visited, it keeps timing out.

i ended net.ath0 and it appears to have one light steady, so maybe the issue is to do with the drivers? Im currently using the gentoo ebuild for madiwifi-ng. Im starting to think there is something to do with a script or maybe the drivers themselves.

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## didymos

Well, I don't see why you're getting the bad ioctl error.  What version of madwifi are you running? In the meantime, try this out:

```

sysctl -w dev.wifi0.diversity=0 dev.wifi0.txantenna=1 dev.wifi0.rxantenna=1

```

You shouldn't need to, but you may want to restart the link after that.

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## meeseontheleese

im running madwifi-ng-0.9.3.3 without the injection useflag.

I ran the command and did /etc/init.d/net.ath0 restart and its still blinking   :Sad: 

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## didymos

OK, don't worry so much about the blinking.  Even if you don't have any TCP or other connections open, the card and AP will chatter at each other pretty much all the time;  unless you know for sure the LED should be always on unless a transfer is active, that might just be normal.  It is with my Trendnet card.  If the blinking is pretty regular, and doesn't seem random/chaotic, it's probably supposed to be doing that.  

Anyway, despite it still blinking, does anything seem to have improved?

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## meeseontheleese

Not really it does what it did before. I checked the card as well, it does the same blinking bit on a windows machine that i tested it in. I realize that using links i can get websites with no problem, yet running them in firefox I have an issue, you think it might be something to do with the file size, or even X?

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## didymos

OK, that's odd.  How is the network set up?  Are you doing routing/NAT on the AP or some machine it's connected to? Also, what sort of connection to the net do you have: cable, DSL, et cetera, and what protocol is used by the ISP: pppoe, pptp, etc.?  Lastly, what's in /etc/conf.d/net for the system that's having trouble?

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## meeseontheleese

the network setup is wpa encryption with tkip. No nat, but it is on a router. the connection we have is qwest dsl. there isnt pppoe, we use dhcp. 

and the net looks like:

```
Pingu ~ # cat /etc/conf.d/net 

# This blank configuration will automatically use DHCP for any net.*

# scripts in /etc/init.d.  To create a more complete configuration,

# please review /etc/conf.d/net.example and save your configuration

# in /etc/conf.d/net (this file :]!).

config_eth0=( "dhcp" )

dhcp_eth0="nodns nontp nonis"

modules=( "wpa_supplicant" )

# Users of madwifi add this:

wpa_supplicant_ath0="-Dmadwifi"

# Users of Intel ipw2100/2200 (Centrino) chips with older kernels add this:

#wpa_supplicant_ath0="-Dipw"

#wpa_timeout_ath0=60

# As of kernel 2.6.15 (and probably earlier), centrino users have to use

#wpa_supplicant_ath0="-Dwext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf"

# wpa_supplicant.conf by default now is located in /etc/wpa_supplicant

# but yours could be in /etc.

#wpa_timeout_ath0=60

Pingu ~ # 

```

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## didymos

 *meeseontheleese wrote:*   

> No nat, but it is on a router. the connection we have is qwest dsl. there isnt pppoe, we use dhcp.

 

OK, maybe the individual computers use DHCP, but how does the router connect? I assume it's a combo modem/router from Qwest.

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## meeseontheleese

we use a linksys wrt54g router with the wireless qwest modem (wireless on modem turned off.) from what i can gather it uses dhcp. It works perfectly fine on the windows machine and seems to be using dhcp.

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## didymos

OK, here's the distinction I'm trying to make:  obviously, the modem gets a dynamic public address from qwest (unless you've paid for a static IP), but that doesn't mean it necessarily uses DHCP to get that address and that it isn't using something like pppoe or ppoa.  Most DSL modems don't use DHCP for their connection to the ISP, even though they may themselves be a DHCP server for your private network.

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## jcat

Can you scan for the nearby wireless networks and post what channels they are on for us?

I mentioned this recently in another thread, but WiFi channels overlap.   If you have a nearby WiFi router on channel 6, for a channel that doesn't overlap you need to select either 1 or 11.  If there's one on channel 1, then you can use anything from 6 to 11 inclusive.  If they are on 2, then anything from 7 to 11 inclusive, etc...

If you have more than two or more nearby routers then you need to find the best compromise you can.

My explanation is probably as clear as mud!  Have a look at his diagram, it will make more sense  :Smile: 

http://www.wifiyacht.net/802-11-overlap-channels.jpg

So you can see that neighbouring bands overlap.  Make sure you're isolated, if possible, then see what your signal strength is like   :Smile: 

Cheers,

jcat

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## Monkeh

Try adjusting the beacon interval on your AP to 50 (default should be 100).

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## meeseontheleese

OMG IT WORKS!!!! monkeh, I followed your advice and it works now. Either that or it was the collaborative effort of all of you, but either way, thanks alot guys ^^.

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