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Tim
Asked: 2010-11-10 01:18:27 +0800 CST

Why does wifi drop out constantly?

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With any version of Ubuntu I try it seems that I have an issue with wifi.

Try as I might, I cannot make the wifi stay connected. I have since installed iwScanner and I can see that my wifi network is on a different channel to the others in range. I can also see a signal strength of about -60 consistently except every minute or so (sometimes as often as 10seconds apart) it drops to -100 or essentially nothing.

If I boot the same machine into Windows 7 it seems to work okay, other laptops seem to work okay.

It is a Linksys WUSB54GC v.3 which seems according to the community docs to be supported. I am not really that far away from the router and besides my mobile phone connects to the wifi network fine from the same distance.

The router is getting old so I had considered maybe it was a problem with the router (Draytek) but then I should have issues with the other machines.

Network is not broadcasting its SSID and is using WPA2

Edit

Also the dropouts to -100 signal are much more frequent when I try to connect to the network using network manager. Every ~2 seconds consistently.

networking wireless usb network-manager

4 Answers

  1. I have seen a similar problem that was caused by the fact that my laptop scanned for N networks about every minute or so. That dropped the link to my router that did not support N network. I switched to another routher with N support and did not see the problem anymore. Could you have a similar problem?

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  2. I would first recommend you to try to change the encryption of your router to WPA, and even WEP if necessary. Some drivers have had problems with WPA/WPA2 encryption. Also, it could be realted to overheating. I had a Lenovo Thinkpad with an Intel Wifi card that every now and then would drop its connection. After much testing I discovered it was dropping packets when the card was hot. The same happens to a PCMCIA card I still have.

    Good Luck

    Ignacio

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  3. As I answered before, don't hide your SSID. It was not meant to be used that way, it is not a security feature, and it may well be the only cause to your problem.

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  4. I had the same problem, but then I had a very simple answer. I changed my WiFi settings so that I had to manually connect to WiFi; It no longer connected automatically.Then I restarted my laptop, and it all worked. However, If this continues to be an issue for you, and you can't find a good solution, I would either see if it gets fixed in the next OS update, or contact the GNOME e-mail help center. Best of luck, amigo!

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