How to debug performance problem of rtl8192ce driver?

[Confusion]

Hi, I have RTL8192CE hardware and am experiencing packet loss and fluctuating throughput (with a low average) with either the kernel driver or your updated driver. I have a spare USB WLAN-dongle (a Ralink RT3072) that I used to rule out any other part as the cause. It's the rtl8192ce hardware or the driver and given the Google results, I suspect the driver ;)

How can I help to further diagnose the problem? My hardware is a

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8192CE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8178] (rev 01) on Ubuntu 15.10 (4.2.0-25-generic).

I've tried enabling debug information, but nothing seems to be logged.

[FreedomBen]

Hi @Confusion . You're embarking down a difficult path, but if you do it you'll benefit a lot from the knowledge. This is a great resource to get you started: http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/ch04.html

It's a little old but still pretty relevant. You might also check out this post: https://www.linux.com/learn/linux-training/33991-the-kernel-newbie-corner-kernel-and-module-debugging-with-gdb

[FreedomBen]

Specifically tho, you'll see that there are no easy performance improvements. It's been a while since I profiled, but I remember there being some slowness in encryption as a result of hardware issues. The encryption can be done in software (and is the recommended setting) but this comes with a performance hit. You'll also see different results based on the firmware of the router you're connecting to, as some routers conform to the IEEE 802.11 spec better than others.

[jcdenton2k]

Relevant link with detailed info: https://github.com/FreedomBen/rtl8188ce-linux-driver/issues/69

I posted a TLDR at the end if you don't care to read through it.