xps studio 13 ubuntu wifi problems

I tried to ask the Ubuntu Forums but they came up blank. Ok I am typing on my old laptop. I have a strange problem with my new Dell xps studio 13. The Wifi driver on it is not working correctly. I can get my wifi to work but for some reason the signal is EXTREMELY weak. i MEAN I CAN BARELY USE MY WIFI it is that weak. I can get a great signal when I boot into windows. So I know it is not a card issue but rather a driver issue. Even then the signal on my old lap top is really strong. On my old laptop, I have 4 out of 5 bars. On my Dell xps I have next to NONE. It takes like 10 mins to even get it to get a lock. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this. Should I try to use Ndiswrapper to install the windows driver. This problem is also present in Kubuntu too.

This is for Ubuntu 9.04

Encase anyone cares..... The newest Nvidia driver in 9.04 works great. The problem with that is solved.

Any suggestions?
Thanks

 

help? anyone have any ideas why this would happen

 

I suggest using Ndis-wrapper to see if the problem persists. Ubuntu Forums will probably yield better responses than here. Just curious, does 9.04 run fine with the graphics card fine immediately after enabling of restricted drivers or does it need a bit of work? If so, do you know what GPU it enables by default (assuming you upgraded your system to the 9500M GE)?

 

see if you can find out what singal power setting your wifi nic is set to. It may be that in ubuntu its set to a low mW level.

 

Some people were getting a similar problem in Windows. It's possibly a hardware fault rather than the software. Possibly a bad aerial connection inside.

 

Well he said it was fine in Windows, so it's pretty obvious it's not a hardware problem, unless the card hates non-Windows OS

 

I tried to use Ndiswrapper but I could not get the driver to work correctly.

Yes Ubuntu 9.04 works great on the studio xps 13. The graphics card works like a charm. Runs like a bat out of hell too. I encourage others to try 9.04. It will help me and let me know if it is just my card or Ubuntus driver? No really there were some problems in the past with 8.10. But according to the online info the Nvidia problems were solved with 9.10. I can tell you first hand that I did not have any problems with the Nvidia drivers. The newest kernal of Ubuntu was using version 180 rather than 177 of the Nvidia driver.

 

Oops, sorry I missed the part about Windows.

 

Thats strange, I am running 9.04 64bit and not having to much of a problem with the wifi. The problem I am having is it not connecting to any wifi connection, and the gnome-keyring-daemon not starting. For the most part its taken care of, but every now and then it will refuse to connect.

 

That is what mine does too. I just notice that the bars of signal are WAY lower than they should be. What I think the problem is, is there is most likely a booster in the chip that magnifies a weaker signal. I bet it is not running correct. I have a ticket in with the Bug report.

Jump in there and tell your story.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/368101

 

Just weighing in. I had the same problem with Ubuntu 9.04 as well, I used the Alphas as well as the final release and the problem still remained. I could not consistently connect to my network. I changed to windows and the problem disappeared so it definitely seems to be a software issue.

 

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 last night and tested today. My average WiFi speeds when connected result in the same downstream/upstream speeds as Windows. However, somewhat occasional drops from WiFi (which do not seem to be present in Windows) have been noted.

I am on the default Broadcom STA wireless driver provided by 9.04.

 

In my experience, using NDIS Wrapper with the windows drivers is better than enableing the drivers in the kernel for wifi cards. It's not that hard to do. If your having problems, install NDIS Wrapper and read the man page. Work it from the CLI- no GUIs. It's a simple utility to use, not complicated. After you have NDIS Wrapper install the Windows driver, you'll have to modprobe NDIS Wrapper.

 

For those still having this issue i believe you simply need to install "linux-backports-modules-jaunty". This was taken from this bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/278190 The information about the 1340 is toward the bottom of the first page.