Linux @lemmy.ml Random Dent @lemmy.ml 3mo ago

Enabling Antenna Aggregation Might Make Big Difference If Your Laptop Has An Intel Wifi Card.

This is swiped from reddit but I thought it was really helpful so please don't judge me too harshly lol.

So it turns out that some Linux distros don't enable this by default for whatever reason but if you have an Intel wifi card that uses the iwlwifi driver (you can check this with lspci -k and look for a section that says Network controller: Intel Corporation and Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi under it), you can add a simple line to a config file that might make a huge difference to your wifi speeds.

Just edit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf (if it doesn't exist just create it) and add the line: options iwlwifi 11n_disable=8 then reboot. I ran Speedtest before and after trying this on my laptop and it seems to have increased it by about 20% or so.

Your mileage may vary of course, but hopefully this helps someone!

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Please do a little research before trying random stuff. After checking to see if you are actually using the iwlwifi module, why not find out a bit about whether the mentioned param. is available to you and what it does:

Am I using the module. If the output from this is blank, then no:

$ lsmod | grep iwlwifi
iwlwifi               622592  1 iwlmvm
cfg80211             1331200  3 iwlmvm,iwlwifi,mac80211

Also verify with lspci -k as above:

$ lspci -k | grep iwlwifi -A2 -B2
        DeviceName: WLAN
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Raptor Lake PCH CNVi WiFi
        Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi
00:15.0 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Alder Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller

# modinfo iwlwifi
   ...
parm:           swcrypto:using crypto in software (default 0 [hardware]) (int)
parm:           11n_disable:disable 11n functionality, bitmap: 1: full, 2: disable agg TX, 4: disable agg RX, 8 enable agg TX (uint)
parm:           amsdu_size:amsdu size 0: 12K for multi Rx queue devices, 2K for AX210 devices, 4K for other devices 1:4K 2:8K 3:12K (16K buffers) 4: 2K (default 0) (int)
parm:           fw_restart:restart firmware in case of error (default true) (bool)
parm:           nvm_file:NVM file name (charp)
parm:           uapsd_disable:disable U-APSD functionality bitmap 1: BSS 2: P2P Client (default: 3) (uint)
parm:           enable_ini:0:disable, 1-15:FW_DBG_PRESET Values, 16:enabled without preset value defined,Debug INI TLV FW debug infrastructure (default: 16) (uint)
parm:           bt_coex_active:enable wifi/bt co-exist (default: enable) (bool)
parm:           led_mode:0=system default, 1=On(RF On)/Off(RF Off), 2=blinking, 3=Off (default: 0) (int)
parm:           power_save:enable WiFi power management (default: disable) (bool)
parm:           power_level:default power save level (range from 1 - 5, default: 1) (int)
parm:           disable_11ac:Disable VHT capabilities (default: false) (bool)
parm:           remove_when_gone:Remove dev from PCIe bus if it is deemed inaccessible (default: false) (bool)
parm:           disable_11ax:Disable HE capabilities (default: false) (bool)
parm:           disable_11be:Disable EHT capabilities (default: false) (bool)

sysfs is a pseudo filesystem with lots of info in it. cat the files here:

$ ls -l /sys/module/iwlwifi/parameters/

... to see what your current values are set at. You can install sysfstools and run this for a neat report:

$ systool -vm iwlwifi
Module = "iwlwifi"

  Attributes:
     ...
  Parameters:
    11n_disable         = "0"
    amsdu_size          = "0"
    bt_coex_active      = "Y"
    disable_11ac        = "N"
    disable_11ax        = "N"
    disable_11be        = "N"
    enable_ini          = "16"
    fw_restart          = "Y"
    led_mode            = "0"
    nvm_file            = "(null)"
    power_level         = "0"
    power_save          = "N"
    remove_when_gone    = "N"
    swcrypto            = "0"
    uapsd_disable       = "3"

Just throwing this out there: on my hardware, this improves my upload but hurts my download speeds. There could possibly be reasons why it’s not set by default.
- I tried it out on another laptop since I posted this, and that had the inverse - download speeds went up by about 20% or so, but the upload speed seems have taken a hit of about 10%. On my 'main' laptop both improved quite drastically.
  
  So yeah definitely a 'your mileage may vary' type of situation, but it's easy enough to reverse I guess so worth a shot if anyone has a bit of a speed problem. You might get lucky!
- I think i read about this once. Something like, Windows has less strict requirements for drivers and hardware, which is why driver-side workarounds for broken hw works better there. Or something like that.
- Are you in a particularly busy wifi area or one without a lot of traffic?
  
  My Wi-Fi bands are saturated with about 50 networks on 2.4 in an apartment complex.
Not sure if this is the same setting but a linux podcast noted one setting was not set by default (for speed) in order to keep power consumption lower
- I think some people also use power_save=0 which would, but my understanding is 11n_disable=8 enables aggregating transmit packets together, which impacts latency but improves upload speed.

8 comments