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I am a newbie to Ubuntu and this is my first post on this forum, so please excuse any mistake.

Having said that the issue is after I recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, I noticed that my Wifi signal is very weak. I have 2 OS, Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04. While Windows 10 shows proper signal, in Ubuntu the signal is very weak. I have not even seen full signal anytime, even though when I am literally sitting next to the router.

My Driver details are below:

Command:

lspci

Output:

02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 31)

Command:

lspci -nnk | grep -A2 0280

Output:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0042] (rev 31)
Subsystem: AzureWave QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [1a3b:2231]
Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci

Command:

sudo lshw -C network

Output:

*-network                 
   description: Wireless interface
   product: QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
   vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
   logical name: wlp2s0
   version: 31
   serial: 40:9f:38:d4:ac:c3
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=4.15.0-20-generic firmware=WLAN.TF.1.0-00002-QCATFSWPZ-5 ip=192.168.0.15 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
   resources: irq:130 memory:ef000000-ef1fffff

I have tried doing the below but to no affect:

sudo modprobe -rv ath10k_pci
sudo modprobe -v ath10k_pci ant_sel=1

My current kernel version is:

4.15.0-20-generic

Any suggestions to improve this?

wambling
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  • Have you setup the regulatory domain for the wifi ? This means inform the kernel of the country you leave in. Install and configure crda and change REGDOMAIN in /etc/default/crda – solsTiCe May 08 '18 at 17:43
  • @solsTiCe, crda was already installed, so I just updated the entry REGDOMAIN=IN as I live in India. Rebooted but still no change. I also ran the command iw reg set IN but no affect. – wambling May 09 '18 at 03:14
  • @wambling Have you figured it out? I am having the same issue with a Lenovo Ideapad 330S with the ath10k_pci driver. The ant_sel=1 or 2 did not help, and iw reg set US did not help either. – Andrew Nov 19 '18 at 01:33
  • @Andrew: The answer provided by mature and manas worked for me. – wambling Jul 21 '19 at 16:21

4 Answers4

4

Suggest, after you do

sudo modprobe -rv ath10k_pci

to try 

sudo modprobe -v ath10k_pci ant_sel=2

as it might be an RF issue which Windows resolved by using antenna #2.

K7AAY
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Jang Dev
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  • sudo modprobe -v ath10k_pci ant_sel=2 – Jang Dev May 14 '18 at 16:18
  • Thanks.. I did try that already, though it seems to have improved but sometimes again it goes back to very weak signal. I also noticed, the signal remains constant and strong if I boot my laptop, while sitting close to the router but if I boot while few meters away like 3-4 meters from router, the signal strength is less than 50. – wambling Aug 19 '18 at 05:03
  • ant_sel=2 isn't even an option for ath10k_pci, check modinfo -p ath10k_pci and see there is no ant_sel parameter option, there is no possible way for it to work, it does work for rtl8723be, see modinfo -p rtl8723be but that only works for rtl8723be chipsets – Jeremy31 Apr 24 '19 at 21:08
  • worked for me, ath9k driver – TimSparrow Feb 06 '20 at 13:55
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    This worked in 20.04 ! Thanks for the insight – SeanO Jun 04 '20 at 16:21
  • How do I make this change permanent? I am unable to set this, I have tried sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf <<< "options rtl8723be ant_sel=2" but didn't work unfortunately. – Akash Raju M Apr 24 '21 at 17:16
  • Okay for me doing just sudo modprobe -r ath10k_pci and sudo modprobe ath10k_pci was fixing my WiFi, so I added these commands to /etc/rc.local so they run on each startup, I followed this guide to create service for rc.local - https://www.linuxbabe.com/linux-server/how-to-enable-etcrc-local-with-systemd and this comment - https://askubuntu.com/a/401090/1038152, skip step 6. Good luck. – Akash Raju M Apr 24 '21 at 19:22
3

Run in terminal

sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf <<< "options rtl8723be ant_sel=2"

This will create a config file to make the setting permanent. Then restart.

Akshay Satpute
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2

For all other Qualcomm cards...

check this command lspci | grep 'Network'

if output comes as

02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 31)

Then this solution may work for you

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential
wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/2015/11/20/backports-20151120.tar.gz
tar -zxvf backports-20151120.tar.gz
cd backports-20151120
make defconfig-ath10k
make
sudo make install

ignore if you get any errors or warnings for make

slava
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manask322
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  • ignore and proceed with the installation in case of errors in make? Just a note, for me the internet speed seems to be ok. the weak only i wifi arc visible in the signal. Might be the UI skin issue in elementary OS – Mrinal Bhattacharjee Nov 12 '19 at 03:21
1

This solution given by Manas worked for me with some minor tweak.

Before executing the wget command check for you linux kernel version.

$ uname -r

Then go to https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/ and check for the closest kernel version available there and then download the backports tar file using the following command.

$ wget https://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/v5.1.16/backports-5.1.16-1.tar.gz

Here 5.1.16 is the linux kernel version.

Then run these. After successful installation of these three commands reboot.

$ make defconfig-ath10k
$ make
$ sudo make install

Reboot.

nawedx
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