8086:088e [Dell XPS L322X] wifi slows and/or drops frequently

Some additional information: I have noticed that if I drop the iwlwifi module and re-enable it with wireless N disabled, my reliability increases greatly.

The commands I'm using are:

sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi

sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 1091372

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

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Updated immediately after the extreme slowdown problem occurred and fixed itself (experienced for ~8 minutes?).

This was also in /var/log/syslog, and seemed relevant. The problem started somewhere around the time of the second- or third-to-last line, and was fixed immediately after the last line appeared:

Dec 26 14:37:03 eryn-ultrabook wpa_supplicant[1218]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 02:1a:11:fd:16:63 [GTK=CCMP]
Dec 26 14:47:03 eryn-ultrabook wpa_supplicant[1218]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 02:1a:11:fd:16:63 [GTK=CCMP]
Dec 26 14:51:23 eryn-ultrabook dhclient: DHCPREQUEST of 192.168.43.39 on wlan0 to 192.168.43.1 port 67
Dec 26 14:51:23 eryn-ultrabook dhclient: DHCPACK of 192.168.43.39 from 192.168.43.1
Dec 26 14:51:23 eryn-ultrabook dhclient: bound to 192.168.43.39 -- renewal in 1401 seconds.
Dec 26 14:57:04 eryn-ultrabook wpa_supplicant[1218]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 02:1a:11:fd:16:63 [GTK=CCMP]
Dec 26 15:03:56 eryn-ultrabook sudo: pam_ecryptfs: pam_sm_authenticate: /home/eryn is already mounted
Dec 26 15:07:05 eryn-ultrabook wpa_supplicant[1218]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with 02:1a:11:fd:16:63 [GTK=CCMP]

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v3.8 kernel[0] (Not a kernel in the daily directory) and install both the linux-image and linux-image-extra .deb packages.

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

If you are unable to test the mainline kernel, for example it will not boot, please add the tag: 'kernel-unable-to-test-upstream'.
Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8-rc1-raring/

Sorry for the delay; I was on vacation for the holidays and could not test the new kernel until now.

The most recent tag is RC3. I installed linux-image-3.8.0-030800rc3-generic_3.8.0-030800rc3.201301092235_i386.deb and linux-image-extra-3.8.0-030800rc3-generic_3.8.0-030800rc3.201301092235_i386.deb.

Unfortunately, the kernel now panics before it can boot. I was unable to test the upstream kernel.

Transcription of the error:
"Failed to execute /init
Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel. See Linux Documentation/init.txt for guidance."

I am experiencing a similar issue with Ubuntu 12.04 & 12.10 running on a new Dell XPS Ivy Bridge.
I have detailed my experience on the Ubuntu Forums http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=12477970#post12477970

From what I can deduce, the issue relates somehow to DNS rather than just network connectivity. As the following video shows, pinging Google.com compared to pinging the ip address of Google.com have drastically different results.
http://youtu.be/Q3fyRgX31l4

Eryn O'Neill: Have you tried removing or manually editing your /etc/resolv.conf file? That sorted my issue.

a_paddy: I don't think that we are experiencing the same issue. I can see from the logs that I'm having trouble staying connected and/or authenticating with the network.

I did check my /etc/resolv.conf, just to be safe. It's being autogenerated by Puppet, and nothing looks out of place.

Update: I successfully installed 3.8 RC 5. My issues persist.

They have changed somewhat, though. On my home network (standard wireless N router), I was able to boot into RC5 and connect us for a couple hours with no issues. Previously, I had to disable N (using "sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1") to connect reliably. This is a success.

However, the new kernel made things much worse on my office's enterprise wireless network (Meru). I connected for about ten minutes initially, then lost the connection and was never able to get back on. I tried rebooting, reloading modules, etc. These log messages repeated about every ten seconds in the kernel log:

Jan 29 13:26:42 eryn-ultrabook kernel: [ 4401.682626] wlan0: authenticate with 00:0c:e6:0a:a6:1d
Jan 29 13:26:42 eryn-ultrabook kernel: [ 4401.685316] wlan0: send auth to 00:0c:e6:0a:a6:1d (try 1/3)
Jan 29 13:26:42 eryn-ultrabook kernel: [ 4401.887871] wlan0: send auth to 00:0c:e6:0a:a6:1d (try 2/3)
Jan 29 13:26:42 eryn-ultrabook kernel: [ 4402.091578] wlan0: send auth to 00:0c:e6:0a:a6:1d (try 3/3)
Jan 29 13:26:42 eryn-ultrabook kernel: [ 4402.295328] wlan0: authentication with 00:0c:e6:0a:a6:1d timed out
Jan 29 13:26:50 eryn-ultrabook kernel: [ 4410.373995] wlan0: deauthenticating from 00:0c:e6:0a:89:28 by local choice (reason=2)

I've since booted back into 3.2.

This issue appears to be an upstream bug, since you tested the latest upstream kernel. Would it be possible for you to open an upstream bug report[0]? That will allow the upstream Developers to examine the issue, and may provide a quicker resolution to the bug.

Please follow the instructions on the wiki page[0]. The first step is to email the appropriate mailing list. If no response is received, then a bug may be opened on bugzilla.kernel.org.

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/kernel

Here is an annotated dump from kern.log of what's going on when I suffer and then fix this issue. Given the traffic of the log, it seems highly likely that the log lines annotate as being associated with wireless trouble is tightly connected.

# Last line from previous association
Apr 15 17:04:22 sputnik kernel: [ 16.183171] wlan0: Limiting TX power to 27 (27 - 0) dBm as advertised by 00:18:0a:30:10:1c

# Everything goes sideways after this spurt
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.623038] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632242] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632251] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632256] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632261] cfg80211: (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632264] cfg80211: (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632268] cfg80211: (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1872.632272] cfg80211: (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.085904] wlan0: authenticate with 02:18:1a:30:10:1c
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.090772] wlan0: send auth to 02:18:1a:30:10:1c (try 1/3)
Apr 15 17:35:22 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.292670] wlan0: send auth to 02:18:1a:30:10:1c (try 2/3)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.300550] wlan0: authenticated
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.304635] wlan0: associate with 02:18:1a:30:10:1c (try 1/3)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.332528] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 02:18:1a:30:10:1c (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=3)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.335828] wlan0: associated
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.336220] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: US
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347205] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: US
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347215] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347223] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347231] cfg80211: (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 1700 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347237] cfg80211: (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347244] cfg80211: (5490000 KHz - 5600000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347251] cfg80211: (5650000 KHz - 5710000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.347257] cfg80211: (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 3000 mBm)
Apr 15 17:35:23 sputnik kernel: [ 1873.386907] wlan0: Limiting TX power to 27 (30 - 3) dBm as advertised by 02:18:1a:30:10:1c

# RFKill-cycle restores service temporaril...

I almost forgot: This is on Raring:

Linux sputnik 3.8.0-18-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 11 19:38:55 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Anybody know anything about this issue?

I'm using ubuntu 13.04 with kernel 3.8.0-19-generic and I have this issue.

Hi,

I think the Intel 6325 WiFi that comes with our machines are garbage. Maybe not the hardware itself but there seems to be problems with the driver both for Windows and Linux. I've read that Dell is aware of the problem and maybe there will be a solution sooner or later. I have swapped the chip to a Killer (Qualcomm Atheros) 1202 and haven't experienced any problems since.

I'm experiencing the same issues with the XPS13 (A08) and Ubuntu 13.04. The WiFi frequently slows down, and pings to my router vary from 1ms to 1000ms and sometimes >10,000ms. I've both tried disabling power saving on the wifi card, and also disabling 802.11n (which drastically reduced cut-outs, but not eliminated them).

When this slowdown occurs, all other devices connected to the same router also suffer from poor connection speed. It is immediately rectified if I disable wifi on the XPS 13.

However, the connection is still very unstable compared to other machines on the same network. At it's best, it's as fast as my other laptop. As it's worst, it gets 0kb/s for seconds at a time... it seems to alternate between each state every couple minutes (as evidenced by my Steam download graphs!)

Hi all,

I am also experiencing constant disconnects on my one week old dell XPS 13 (BIOS A06). I have been trying two different kernels:

- 3.2.0-41-generic #66+kamal16~DellXPS-Ubuntu
- 3.8.0-19.30~precise1

srcversion of the module for the 3.2.0 kernel is
$ modinfo iwlwifi
srcversion: 99F715B156678F68AE86AC4

and for the 3.8.0 kernel:
809985E6954BA6AA05902AC

The two driver versions seem to have different issues, however. The bug in the 3.2. version always reports something about a stuck Queue in dmesg (see bug #1009878 ) while the 3.8. kernel says something described in bug #1159145.

Collecting the information from several forum posts, I always disable 11n mode, hardware encryption and enable the watchdog for stuck queues. I double check these iwlwifi module parameters by cat'ing the corresponding entries in /sys/module/iwlwifi/parameters/. Also I disabled power management for the card by inserting into /etc/pm/power.d/wireless:

#!/bin/sh
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power off
exit 0

and checking it with:
$ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11abg ESSID:"Rahi_Net"
          Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:0F:66:24:D9:D9
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
          Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-38 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:710 Missed beacon:0

It seems really to be the case, that the 6235 chip from Intel has issues, which are ignored by them. See this forum entry at the Intel support site:
http://communities.intel.com/thread/31090?start=0&tstart=0

A ticket was filed by Red Hat to the linuxwireless bugzilla (official intel development site). As it seems, the buzilla site was taken down "due to security reasons". See bottom of this page:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi

Also Dell customers complained without success:
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/4613/t/19464992.aspx?PageIndex=1

It doesn't seem to me, that there will be a solution anytime soon. My question is: does this problem only occur on some XPS 13 notebooks? It seems that the problem with the 6235 chip is very long known, so why did Dell use this chipset in its "Ubuntu Notebook"? And did this really go through QA at Canonical, Dell _and_ Intel? Seems that quite a big number of people are having this issue.

Anyhow I'd like to help, if anyone has questions. The sad thing is, I really don't know how to provoke this bug. Will keep you posted. BTW: does anyone know how I can update the BIOS to A08? The freedos USB boot disk way does not work for me. Running the executable freezes the machine. Also I cannot extract the hdr from the exe.

Update:

I talked to the Dell support today, to get to speak to ProSupport. Turns out I am required to have purchased specifically the "developer edition" and not a random Dell XPS 13, else my Ubuntu issues don't justify a refund. Nice.

But the support people were helpfull in that they found out, that the "developer edition" is advertised to have a different wifi chipset compared to the windows versions. The Ubuntu ones have the 6230 and not the 6235:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-l321x-mlk/pd

These chips are really different:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/centrino/centrino-advanced-n-6230-brief.html
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/centrino/centrino-advanced-n-wimax-6235-brief.html

Could anyone who reported these problems, tell me whether they explicitly bought the "developer edition", or installed Ubuntu by himself? Also, which chip does your Dell have? 6230 or 6235?

@pedijan: Interesting! I've got the standard edition with the 6235.

I have the Developer Edition, L322x. It shipped with the 6235, and Pro Support just replaced my card with another 6235 card a couple days ago. (Jury is still out on whether or not my connection is more stable. I've had trouble but I'm still trying to separate laptop issues from network issues.)

I have the 720p version, not the newer 1080p that you linked to. But this 720p listing shows the 6320 as well: http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd.

I'm not sure whether that changes anything, however. The 6235 should also be supported by iwlwifi, but apparently there are bugs.

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried kernel 3.9? I just upgraded to it and... the wifi connection appears to be stable and holding, and fast.

It'll take another day or two to be sure, but immediate impressions are quite positive.

Should have mentioned that switching to the 3.9 kernel was as simple and pain-free as this:
http://linuxg.net/how-to-install-3-9-kernel-on-ubuntu-13-04-12-10-12-04-and-linux-mint-15-14-13/

Installed 3.9., but did not see an improvement, sorry. At least I now have a way of reproducing the bug. I am just streaming a lecture on linear algebra on youtube and downloading an Ubuntu ISO at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MF3pz-oYHo&list=PL49CF3715CB9EF31D
http://www.ubuntu.com/start-download?distro=desktop&bits=64&release=lts

After 10 to 20 minutes the bug hits me. The driver tries to send commands to the queue, which returns an error:

Error sending REPLY_SCAN_CMD: time out after 2000ms.
Current CMD queue read_ptr 94 write_ptr 120

The read_ptr stays at 94 at subsequent tries, while the write_ptr increases until the queue is full, which is when the driver crashes. I found something on this in an archlinux wiki. See link under "Suspension":

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ThinkPad_X230

Although my bug occurs even if I never suspend. If I feel like I will compile the kernel with those flags. Again: this sucks and I'm not receiving any response.

@Eryn: What did ProSupport say? How did your replacement work out for you? I just realized that your CurrentDMesg.txt doesn't display the same bug as mine, so I might be in the wrong thread anyway. Could you nevertheless tell me whether you can download and stream the two links I posted above for more than 30 minutes? Thanks in advance.

Update on 3.9: after using it for the past day or so, I am continuing to get occasional periods of high latency (~5000ms), especially when downloading large amounts of data.

So, 3.9 is not the miracle cure it looked like, unfortunately.

Maybe kernel 3.9 it isn't a miracle but, I think that improve speed and quality.

When I use kernel 3.8 that come with ubuntu 13.04, sometimes the speed is 1 mega and with kernel 3.9 the connect speed is 150 megas.

I don't know why intel does not tell anything about this issue

As I said, I seem to be on the wrong thread. My bug leaves a "fail to flush all tx queues" im my dmesg/syslog, so I copied my comments into the correct thread (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1159145).

I don't think it will do any good, but at least I tried. I will try to return the notebook.

I'm having the same problem with my Linux Ubuntu 12.04. At work it seems to stall and the internet cuts out, even though I'm still connected to the router. The problem is temporarily fixed if I disconnect and reconnect to the router. At home the same thing happens, but it asks me for the password even though it's already saved. I've had the computer for 2 weeks now and everyday it gets progressively worse, which is extremely frustrating with my job being web development.

I can provide system logs and wireless info if needed.

On a side note, I was extremely wary about getting a Dell vs a Macbook Pro, but a coworker convinced me to try this out as it was "perfect" for development work. I had a horrible experience a few years ago on a Dell laptop that completely fell apart. So it's safe to say that if this problem isn't fixed soon, I'll more or less forever lose confidence in Dell.

@mictael: Have you tried the suggestions listed in this thread?

I had the exact same issues as yourself, but after disabling WiFi power saving, and upgrading to kernel 3.10 (previously 3.9) I've not had any further major issues with WiFi or connectivity.

In fact, I dare say - WiFi power saving excepted - this is now my favourite notebook I've ever owned...

Michael: Before switching to an unsupported kernel, please use first try the linux-image-generic-lts-raring kernel. Since you're using an old BIOS version, please update that as well. Also, if you bought the XPS 13 Developer Edition, note that you are entitled to help from Dell ProSupport. (I am with Dell but not in ProSupport. Also, note that ProSupport is different from our normal consumer support. I'm sorry that you've had bad experiences with us in the past.) It would really help us with resolving wireless issues if our support people were able to work directly with you on this issue.

Eryn O'Neil, as per http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/19/Product/xps-13-l321x-mlk an update is available for your BIOS (A09). If you update to this, does it change anything?

If not, could you please both specify what happened, and provide the output of the following terminal command:
sudo dmidecode -s bios-version && sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date

Thank you for your understanding.

Just verified that, disabling 11n the connection become stable. My wifi card is an "Intel Wireless-N 1030 BGN":

I've added "options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1" to a file /etc/modprobe.d/personal-opts.conf

Juan Jose Amor Iglesias, thank you for your comment. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report with Ubuntu by executing the following in a terminal while booted into a Ubuntu repository kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

problem seems to be still present. I reported the bug here trough ubuntu-bug linux. I didn't managed to report it here so i created a new bug and marked as duplicate of this.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1322184

The bug created by Nicola includes a workaround (install an upstream kernel) that has worked for me.

I'm seeing this issue as well on a Dell XPS. I've disabled 11n as described in this bug (and elsewhere) but wifi still drops once every few hours. I'll try to grab some logs next time it happens.

I'm experiencing the same problems (XPS13 developer edition with Centrino 6235 out of the shelf) , but now I noticed this from Intel:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/31090

"""
Edited 9/5/2014 by John S. (Intel Customer Support).
The 17.1.0 version of Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers has fixes for connectivity related issues with the Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6235 wireless adapter.
"""

So Intel claims they have finally fixed the issues (after 2 years) in their windows drivers. Now, can anyone make some detective work to see what are the corresponding fixes on the linux drivers and could we backport them?

Oh, and just to point out, my wireless is nearly unusable now that I'm running utopic. I basically have an external wifi dongle attached to the system all the time.

Antti Kaijanmäki, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, this bug report is not scoped to you, or your problem. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report with Ubuntu by executing the following in a terminal while booted into the default Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

As well, please do not announce in this report you created a new bug report.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

Chistopher: I'm not completely sure what you mean. I have a XPS13 which demonstrates the exact symptoms of this bug report...