How to configure Intel 3165 WiFi / BlueTooth on Ubuntu 22.04

Question

My wife is using HP Probook 450 G3 with Intel wireless 3165 WiFi / Bluetooth. HP supports only Windows on that laptop. Windows works extremely slow since some Windows update. So, I recently installed fresh Ubuntu 22.04 on her HP Probook for dual boot. Unfortunately, some devices do not work as expected. Fingerprint scanner does not work completely, but we can do without it.

The problem device is WiFi / Bluetooth adapter Intel 3165. It is detected by system and generally works. However the devil is in the details.

My wife watches YouTube with Bluetooth headphones and use AnyDesk at the same time to connect to her office. This extremely loads the Intel device. It works in Windows without problems. So, we hope it can work well in Ubuntu also.

If Bluetooth is switched off WiFi works perfectly. If it is switched on WiFi becomes extremely slow. I searched internet about the problem. I found some options for /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf. I tried some options. The best result was a clear sound in headphones. I failed to increase the network speed. Sometimes speedtest.net shows less than 1MB/sec. Such speed prevents usage of AnyDesk. It seams some variants of options lead to gradual dying of WiFi (overheat?) but I'm not sure.

I failed to find any documentation about options in /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf and I completely do not understand every option I turned. Besides, some suggested variants of options contain the same option several times with different values. It confuses me.

Is there any documentation about iwlwifi options?

And the second question is about backport-iwlwifi-dkms/jammy,jammy 9858-0ubuntu3.

The package is installed in the fresh Ubuntu 22.04 by default. I do not understand what is the package for. Some people recommends to remove the package from Ubuntu 20.04. Ubuntu 20.04 Network Performance Extremely Slow https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/backport-iwlwifi-dkms/+bug/1869587

So, do I need to remove the package from Ubuntu 22.04 also? I did not do it yet. Can I restore the package if I remove it? Why the package contains dkms in its name? I looks strange for me.

I would appreciate any help

Answer 1

First of all, the backports package is seldom helpful and often harmful. I suggest that you remove it:

sudo apt remove backport-iwlwifi-dkms

Reboot.

It can be restored if desired.

Why the package contains dkms in its name? I looks strange for me.

dkms stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support, a framework which allows kernel modules to be dynamically built for each kernel on your system in a simplified and organized fashion.

It is normal and expected.

Bluetooth operates on a frequency of 2.45 gHz; most wifi networks will run on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies. In order to avoid the possibility of interference, I suggest that you force your wifi to use only the 5 gHz segment of your router.

You may either rename the segments of your router to something like myrouter2.4 and myrouter5, or, if renaming is not feasible, ask Network Manager to bind to the 5 gHz segment like this: Ubuntu connect drops. Worked for a while then started dropping again

Answer 2

I had this device. It poorly works with Bluetooth with the default option bt_coex_active.

Run

sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi-opt.conf <<< "options iwlwifi bt_coex_active=N"

It will be applied after a reboot.

Remove all other options if you added them elsewhere.

Regarding meaning of the options you can list them by

modinfo iwlwifi | grep parm

Backports modules are used to build modules from newer kernels to add support for some new devices.

Your wireless device is old and doesn't need it. But I don't think it makes any difference.