Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 ThinkPenguin sucks and they sell sucky products. This is the third USB WiFi adaptor I've gotten from them. They die within a few months and this is on its way out now too, dropping my connection at random and slowly getting worse. The guy at ThinkPenguin keeps telling me it's my USB controller that's bad and that Dell makes bad USB controllers that send packets that are too large, and I need to change my firmware to shrink the packets, and I did that and it keeps happening anyway. Dell is a huge, reputable company and they do not make faulty USB controllers to an extent that would require special firmware replacement downloads. That would be stupid and I can't believe this guy is right. The thing is I need hardware that will work with my Linux Mint 17.1 computer, which is why I've been buying from ThinkPenguin. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I could do before this adaptor dies completely? I have an open expansion bay (not sure what kind) but the computer is from 2007 so finding non-USB hardware for it may be difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 Oh cool, a question I can actually answer... There are a lot of chipsets that will work with a modern Linux distro. For my laptop-turned-router, I use a cheap one with the Ralink RT5370 chipset. Something like this: http://www.ebay.com/...=item3aac6fd532 This chipset is fantastic. Strong signal, bandwidth about as good as 100 Mb/s wired ethernet. Re the Dell wifi, the ThinkPenguin guy makes it sound like the MTU is wrong? That can be changed using ifconfig, if necessary, but I doubt it's the problem. More likely either the wifi is weak or the Linux driver is rubbish, or both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 He says what happens is the packets are too big and it overworks and kills the adaptor. It's happened to me once, and when it started happening with the second one I got a replacement, and now it's beginning again. This is the one I got on ThinkPenguin: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-w-external-antenna-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usbl Accursed thing costs $45 plus shipping. I paid for two and got the third one for free because it was still in warranty. I'm no longer in warranty, I'm fairly certain. I mean holy crap though, $3.90 with free shipping on Amazon? What's the catch and why am I paying ThinkPenguin $100?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 That ThinkPenguin adapter has the same chipset as my netbook's wireless, IIRC. It should be handled with the ath9k driver. It doesn't need any firmware, and should work magnificently under Linux, going all the way back to the 2.6 kernels. (It should also last forever and give excellent signal reception, if my netbook is any indication.) If I were you, I would take a look at the output of the 'dmesg' command, and see if there are any errors or warnings from the wifi adapter. If you can't make head nor tail of it, post it here and I'll take a look. As for random cheap adapters, one catch is that they may require proprietary firmware. I'm assuming you don't care about that, since you're already running Linux Mint. But IMO you should try to make the old USB adapter work, before chucking it and buying another. Usually these issues can be fixed in my experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 http://pastebin.com/rPtZ4QN3 There's the output. I don't know what I'm looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 Hmm. You're located in the US, but it's using the wifi country code for the UK. (GB is "Great Britain.") That might cause problems, not sure. And it does need firmware apparently, but you have that already. Hmm. Can you link the output of 'ifconfig -a'? Edit: to be entirely clear, the USB adapter is detected by your kernel and appears to be working (though I think the country code might present an issue). Edit 2: whoops, I missed that it switches to US later. Good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 http://pastebin.com/KsFaZGDF There's ifconfig -a . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 USB adapter looks normal... Oh oh oh wait a minute. I somehow misread that bit about USB controllers as "wifi adapter" - thought you were on a laptop! Whoops. D'oh. Okay - are you on a desktop? Do you have the adapter plugged into a front USB port? If so, try a rear one. Front USB ports are always flaky. (And Dell does use rubbish USB controllers in my experience, and just rubbish in general.) Edit: USB stuff in dmesg looks normal. Also it looks like I'm really stupid today. I mean, how many laptops have that many SATA ports? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 Yes, it's a desktop, from 2007, secondhand, and it's plugged into the back. Is there anything I can do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 Don't know, and honestly it might be beyond my expertise. My main thought is that a PCI USB controller might work, if the one on the motherboard is dodgy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 Found a Parallel PCI USB controller on Amazon but I can't afford it this month. Hopefully the adapter will survive until next month, but it's getting worse day by day... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 Thanks, Tevildo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Tyranicus Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Found a Parallel PCI USB controller on Amazon but I can't afford it this month. Hopefully the adapter will survive until next month, but it's getting worse day by day... You'll want to make sure your expansion slot is PCI. On a 2007 PC, it could be either PCI or PCI-E. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Judging from looking at photos on Wikipedia and eyeballing it, it appears to be PCI and not PCI-E. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 I have a PCI wireless adapter around somewhere, If I find it I'd be more than happy to beam it to you for the cost of shipping, if you're interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Really? Wow, thanks! What is the cost of shipping? Those things are pretty light, right? It might be nice to have extra USB ports, but really I have plenty already and it's only the USB WiFi adapters that are having problems with my on-board USB controller, not my mouse or thumb drives or anything else, really. The guy at ThinkPenguin explained it to me once but I forget what he said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Sylae is offering a PCI wireless adapter, not USB adapter. Which is probably a better solution anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Yes, I know. what I meant was, before the offer, I was going to buy a PCI USB controller and plug my (rapidly dying) USB antenna into it, but a PCI wireless adapter would indeed be a better solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 (edited) (I actually have an old-ass USB2 PCI board as well ) Edited June 22, 2015 by sylae AND THEY SAID BEING A HOARDING PACKRAT WOULD NEVER COME IN HANDY Tyranicus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 I've only got one PCI slot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 Don't go out of your way to find that, Sylae. I've become friendly with one of my Prescription for Transportation drivers and he's going to upgrade my RAM and my PSU, as well as reseat my heat sink with new thermal paste and give me a PCI wireless NIC, for $10. Can't beat that, I guess. Thanks for the offer though, I do appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast VCH Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Hey ADoS, you have some really cool stuff on your web-site. I don't know why I decided to click on that link, but it was worth it—good stories etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon The Almighty Doer of Stuff Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 Oh, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Forget it Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 I suppose I'm late to this party but I have a cheap TENDA brand usb wifi adaptor that has never, ever let me down, on any OS, even where Belkin (and in one case AT&T-branded) have failed. I keep it in my repair kit because I just know it's going to work. Got the thing at Micro Center for eight bucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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