PCIe WiFi card performance on Ubuntu much worse than on Windows, help understanding drivers

Saar Koren

10/14/23, 7:28 AM

I have a TP-Link Archer T4E PCIe WiFi adapter that is getting pretty poor performance on Linux (Ubuntu MATE 22.04) compared to Windows 10.

Download speeds are around 50 Mbps compared to 130 Mbps on Windows. Upload speeds are around 5 Mbps compared to 93 Mbps on Windows.

I know that this WiFi card is officially only supported for Windows, and that this issue probably has something to do with drivers. I'd like to understand if this is something that can be fixed with a different driver or some other tweak, or if this the best this WiFi card can do on Linux.

Output of sudo lshw -class network (excluding other devices):

*-network                 
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlp3s0
       version: 01
       serial: d0:37:45:ae:37:52
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8821ae driverversion=5.15.0-50-generic firmware=N/A ip=10.100.102.40 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:147 ioport:d000(size=256) memory:f7d00000-f7d03fff

Output of lspci -nn (excluding other devices):

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8812] (rev 01)

I also found this thread (it's on Arch forums, I know), where someone has the same WiFi card but it looks like his has a Broadcom chip, and mine has a Realtek chip.

I can also see the driver being loaded in systemd journal:

saar@saar-desktop:~/.local/bin$ journalctl -b | grep rtl8821
Oct 14 10:05:14 saar-desktop kernel: rtl8821ae 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
Oct 14 10:05:14 saar-desktop kernel: rtl8821ae: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8812aefw.bin
Oct 14 10:05:14 saar-desktop kernel: rtl8821ae: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8812aefw_wowlan.bin
Oct 14 10:05:14 saar-desktop kernel: rtl8821ae 0000:03:00.0 wlp3s0: renamed from wlan0
Oct 14 10:05:14 saar-desktop NetworkManager[809]: <info>  [1665731114.5765] rfkill0: found Wi-Fi radio killswitch (at /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.2/0000:03:00.0/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill0) (driver rtl8821ae)

What can I make of this information?

408

0 + 5

wireless

networking

drivers

tp-link

David

10/14/23, 7:30 AM

That the maker of the WiFi device uses different chips at different times. That is why the driver is for a chip and not for the maker of the device. So what you need to make sure you are using is the driver for this chip. RTL8812AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

Saar Koren

10/14/23, 8:24 AM

@David I added information from the systemd journal where you can see the driver being loaded.

David

10/14/23, 8:27 AM

You show a different driver being loaded look close. You need the 8812 you have the 8821.

Saar Koren

10/14/23, 8:48 AM

@David If I understand correctly from [this](https://linux-hardware.org/index.php?id=pci:10ec-8812-1186-3305) page, 8821 is the correct driver, despite the name being different.

David

10/14/23, 8:54 AM

Not my experience but if you say so. If you search the for RTL on this site you will find many questions about it.

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