Wireless throughput issues

[leigh123linux]

Try

su -
iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

[David Becker]

That's funny. I also have an atheros (AR242x with ath5k):

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"Wire-less"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 00:10:34:F2:2E:B8   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Encryption key: ... [2]   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=73/100  Signal level:-59 dBm  Noise level=-106 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

With the default settings, 'bing' reports about 1.8Mb/s throughput.

If I set the rate to anything higher than 24M, I can't establish a wireless connection or an existing wireless connection stalls.

I can set the rate higher combined with the 'auto' parameter (which may lower the rate).

iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M auto

Now 'bing' reports about 15Mb/s throughput. After setting this rate, iwconfig still reports:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"Wire-less"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 00:10:34:F2:2E:B8   
          Bit Rate=1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Encryption key: ... [2]   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=73/100  Signal level:-59 dBm  Noise level=-106 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

when the connection is idle. While 'bing'ing, iwconfig looks like this:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"Wire-less"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 00:10:34:F2:2E:B8   
          Bit Rate=36 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Encryption key: ... [2]   Security mode:open
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=73/100  Signal level:-59 dBm  Noise level=-106 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I'm connecting with a Broadcom based access point (linksys wrt54gl) located about 8 feet from the laptop with the Atheros card.

Bit off topic but note that the Linksys doesn't get wireless throughput rates higher than 30Mb/s (if you're very lucky). Following rates are typical for these APs:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=341

David