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I am using Ubuntu 16.04 and the wireless card RTL8723BE.

I have tried three laptops now, the Lenovo B50-45, Lenovo B50-50 and HP 350 G2. They all have the wireless card RTL8723BE integrated and they all had the same issue - the wlan frequently disconnects and after disconnection I cannot connect again. Sometimes I do not even find any other router where I could connect to. The only solution that I found was to make a restart.

I am aware of the question How do I get a Realtek RTL8723BE wireless card to work? and I followed the instruction of the answer, installing a new driver. However, on all three laptops this did not solve the problem. I also tried as suggested to add

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

but this also did not help. Even worse, when adding this line I could not even connect normally to the router, so I had to remove it again.

I also had Windows 10 on the HP laptop and on Windows 10 there were no connection errors. So I don't think that the router is the problem.

Here is the information about my current installed wireless card:

*-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlp2s0
       version: 00
       serial: 68:14:01:30:e1:33
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8723be driverversion=4.4.0-45-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.102 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
       resources: irq:17 ioport:5000(size=256) memory:d3100000-d3103fff

What else could I try to get this wireless card working?

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Adam
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2 Answers2

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Linux does not support this card properly and it never will. I have the same wifi card too,I tried EVERYTHING and yet still doesn't work even with the latest kernel. The card is more than 2 years old. I don't think they will support it properly anytime soon. I also tried with external wifi cards,none of them did work,the kernel keeps enabling the RTL8723BE. My advice is to stay on Windows or buy a new laptop.

Daniel プリン
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  • I think I found a way how it works. But I am going to check it for the next few days before I post my solution. – Adam Nov 09 '16 at 15:18
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    BTW: http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/16344/please-only-advise-if-you-actually-have-something-to-say-on-the-subject?cb=1 – Adam Nov 09 '16 at 15:18
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I was able to get the wlan 100% working - no disconnects anymore on Ubuntu 16.04 with the wireless card RTL8723BE (However, only tested on HP 350 G2 for 1 month).

Here are the steps:

Step 1 Remove the rtl8723be.conf file, if you have created it by reading all the other posts here on the site about this card.

sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf

Step 2 Update the driver

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hanipouspilot/rtlwifi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtlwifi-new-dkms

Step 3 Disable Legacy Support in Bios like this:

Bios -> Boot Option (Enter) -> Legacy Support: Disabled

enter image description here

Thats it. Now it should work!

How I found that out

I was first doing Step 1 and Step 2 (they have been suggested already in https://askubuntu.com/a/635629/247771), but I still had a disconnect all 20min - 2hours. In the answer Pilot6 suggested to add again the rtl8723be.conf file, but when doing it, the wlan was complete broken. I tried some of the configurations of that file, but none really helped. So in the end, I simply removed rtl8723be.conf again. I then scrolled down and found the solution (Step 3) by reading this answer which said one should remove Windows 10 fastboot. I don't have windows 10, so I could not remove fastboot. But I was looking if I could disable something else in the Boot Options. This is how I found it out. Can't belive that this works. This problem was bugging me for month.

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  • if I set disabled "Legacy Support" my computer doesn't boot. Do you use UEFI Boot? And if you know, how did you manage this? And finally, has your wifi ever dropped the connection after applying your solution? – efkan Dec 13 '16 at 06:04
  • @efkan Yes I use UEFI Boot. If you want to know how to install Ubuntu with UEFI Boot check out https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI#Identifying_if_the_computer_boots_the_HDD_in_EFI_mode . They even show screenshots how the installation has to look for UEFI Boot (see section Identifying if the computer boots the Ubuntu DVD in UEFI mode). I have edited my question to make the steps more clear. My wifi dropped in the first week 2 times. In the past month, I had no single disconnect. I am using my laptop 6-8h a day. – Adam Dec 13 '16 at 10:04
  • Thank you for your editing the answer and this beautiful explanation! If I experience a disconnection I'll try your solution. – efkan Dec 13 '16 at 10:40