Wifi issue under ubuntu (RTL8723BE driver)

Question

I have recently bought a new laptop (HP PAVILION 15-AB016NF) and installed Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 8 in dual boot. Under Windows, my wireless works properly but under Ubuntu it does not: wireless signals are very poor and I can't connect or I am disconnected after a few minutes. Google tells me I'm not the first one to encounter this problem:

How do I get a Realtek RTL8723BE wireless card to work?

Wifi problems with rtl8723be in Ubuntu 14.04

The fixes proposed however do not work for me.

Here are some information about my system.

******uname -a******
Linux laurentlaptop 3.19.0-26-generic #28~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Aug 12 14:09:17 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

******rfkill list ******
0: hci0: Bluetooth
       Soft blocked: yes
       Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
       Soft blocked: no
       Hard blocked: no


******ifconfig ******
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 3c:a8:2a:ac:be:05  
          inet addr:128.141.49.98  Bcast:128.141.49.127  Mask:255.255.255.192
          inet6 addr: fe80::3ea8:2aff:feac:be05/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:19526 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:15806 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:15651156 (15.6 MB)  TX bytes:2320379 (2.3 MB)
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:3957 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3957 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:612542 (612.5 KB)  TX bytes:612542 (612.5 KB)

    wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 70:77:81:2f:c1:e9  
              UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
              RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
              RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

******lspci*****
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Host Bridge -OPI (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics (rev 09)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Camarillo Device (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP USB xHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP MEI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev e3)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #2 (rev e3)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev e3)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev e3)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev e3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI Mode] (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP SMBus Controller (rev 03)
08:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 0a)
0a:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1347 (rev a2)

Do you have any idea on how to fix this annoying issue?

Thanks a lot !

I actually upgraded my system to Ubuntu 15.04 and things did not improve (actually they got worse: I still have this wifi issue and now the touchpad is not recognized). Any advice?
Thanks ! — lathomas, Sep 11 '15 at 13:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 27 '15 at 05:05

First confirm which wifi driver your system is using

sudo lshw -C network

This will give something like (just check the description: Wireless interface):

*-network               
   description: Wireless interface
   product: RTL8723AE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
   logical name: wlan0
   version: 00
   serial: 24:ec:99:21:c9:29
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8723ae driverversion=3.8.0-27-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.74 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
   resources: irq:17 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:c3000000-c3003fff

and confirm your driver from configuration: and see if your's is rtl8723be

Now just connect through the Ethernet temporarily and do:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential git
git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
cd rtlwifi_new
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe rtl8723be

Reboot your system. Check if its working. This works for all the kernels above 3.0

Hello, Thanks for your reply. So I checked my driver using lshw as you suggested and it's indeed rtl8723be. I tried the fix you proposed but it doesn't seem to change anything. The wifi networks are visible but impossible to connect to them... — lathomas, Jan 07 '16 at 16:37

Wifi issue under ubuntu (RTL8723BE driver)

1 Answers1