Solution to Wi-Fi problems on HP laptops with Realtek RTL8723BE NICs (2016)

https://github.com/tarunbatra/fixRTL8723BE

by tbking • 9 years ago

34 24 9 years ago

DiabloD3• 9 years ago

I don't know what the bug is, but if it's a hardware problem, can't HP be forced to fix it under warranty?

f4stjack• 9 years ago

The "bug" is HP only connects one of the antennae input of the wifi card. So, linux can use the card in theory (it has the drivers), but in practice it doesn't work unless the wifi ap is very close. The solution is to force its conf file to use the other antennae. (ant_sel = 2).

In ubuntu you had to download a driver sourcecode, compile it and modprobe it to the system but to my surprise latest fedora core worked when I did the conf magic I mentioned, so maybe the updated versions use the rtlwifi package.

tbking4• 9 years ago

It's just incompatibility between hardware and software. HP's official drivers for Windows work perfectly, but no such privilege to Linux users.

sschueller• 9 years ago

Great, already replaced that laptop with a thinkpad. Never buying or recommending an HP laptop ever again.

fullstackhuman• 9 years ago

What if you need to heat your house?

dahauns2• 9 years ago

There are Lenovo notebooks with exactly the same problem. By your logic, you should sell the Thinkpad as well...

HowardMei• 9 years ago

HP has another problem: https://www.howtogeek.com/307311/how-to-check-if-your-hp-lap...

The Lenovo has ruined the good old IBM Thinkpad but it's still better than HP in any sense.

Dell and Asus are producing top notch laptop these days.

dz0ny• 9 years ago

This is not only for HP(see it in Acer, Lenovo... ). They leave the one ANT connector disconnected on cheap laptops because there is no antenna for it.

Drivers will default to a mixed mode where both antennas work(one receiving one transmitting), now if you install drivers on Windows from official driver package it will work as intended because install will configure drivers to only user ANT1. And you can do it manually if you chose not to install drivers, "the official" way.

I'm not making an apology for mentioned companies just clarifying that this is known thing for cheap laptops.

tbking4• 9 years ago

I haven't noticed that pattern. for example my ₹30,000 Lenovo works fine but ₹50,000 HP doesn't.

zeusk• 9 years ago

$465 and $775 aren't exactly cheap and premium.

Premium lines usually start at $1000 ~ $1200.

gbrown_• 9 years ago

The title/ synopsis is somewhat misleading. While it may have been a HP problem there's no mention of the specific fault. Indeed it's just a script to download and install the latest rtlwifi drivers. Also given that apt is mentioned in the script I guess this seen on Debian/ Ubuntu distros (unsure of version), but who knows other distros that may ship later drivers may be fine.

TL;DR Vague repo is vague.

tyingq• 9 years ago

It points to another repo[1] that says this:

"Added March 16, 2016: All branches of this repo now support the ant_sel module option for rtl8723be. In addition, patches to implement this feature have been submitted to the linux-wireless repo. If accepted, they should appear in kernel 4.7; however, they will be backported to kernels 4.0 and newer when they reach mainline."

It's the antenna selection that fixes the problem.

[1] https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new

sizzzzlerz• 9 years ago

I have a 3-year old HP LT which, when Windows 8 was installed, never had wifi issues. When Windows 10 came on, it started dropping the connection. Some times, I could reconnect but usually, it had to be rebooted. I tried new drivers and suggestions I found but nothing solved the problem. Finally, I bought one of those USB WiFi dongles, configured the system to use it, and my network issues went away. I have no idea if this is a solution to the original problem but I'll stick with the dongle as long as its working.

tbking4• 9 years ago

This solution works on Linux. Official HP drivers are usually the best way on Windows.

LeonM• 9 years ago

This should have a [2016] tag, also wondering why this pops up on HN all of a sudden?

It's been a long known issue with some WiFi cards (not just the RTL cards) that some manufacturers don't connect both antennae on some models of portables, so you should update your configuration accordingly (on Linux), or use the driver supplied by the machine manufacturer (with the correct config) rather than downloading the driver from the RTL website.

Theodores• 9 years ago

I thought this was never going to be fixed on my Lenovo Yoga laptop. Many wifi-dongles later I went wired ethernet with a crossover cable to a Chromebook that may not have niceties like a CPU but it does stay locked on to the weakest wifi signal in a highly congested area.

I rate the likelihood of this fixing anything as highly unlikely - compiled, installed, rebooted with both wifi aerial options and the machine is still somewhat deaf.

mschuster91• 9 years ago

rebooted with both wifi aerial options and the machine is still somewhat deaf.

Hmm. Laptop wifi antenna cables run through the hinges into the screen. Which means it's very well possible they're damaged or torn (and given your description, since manufacture).

lucb1e• 9 years ago

Readme is extremely brief. Looking in install.sh, it's just a wrapper around another repository: https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new

tbking4• 9 years ago

I don't think it's just a wrapper. It's a script which does 'n' tasks in 1 command. One of the command is applying those drivers, but the critical part is the configuration to select the second antenna.

snarfy• 9 years ago

My solution was to replace the realtek with a $16 intel based wifi card. I spent some time trying to fix the realtek but ultimately my time is money.

milankragujevic• 9 years ago

I actually noticed this on most newer cheap laptops. It's annoying, but can be fixed (I think, I haven't tried) by buying a cheap (less than $1) Drone antenna from China (2.4G models) and plugging it into the other port.

oregontechninja• 9 years ago

My HP x360 had a little wifi trouble at first on every linux distribution. I actually had a bash script on USB to fix the issue until there was better support. In the past few months, Ubuntu and OpenSuSE have worked out of the box.

Solution to Wi-Fi problems on HP laptops with Realtek RTL8723BE NICs (2016)

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