Wifi internet connection cuts out -often after a few minutes

[darkcity]

New install of Debian 10 Buster.

I'm using a USB dongle (RealTek) to connect to wifi, I installed non-free drivers for the device.

Wifi internet connection cuts out - often after a few minutes. Connection works on boot up but then is lost. The only way I can find to make it work again is to reboot.

Any idea how to diagnose the problem?

The command 'ifconfig' isn't present, 'ip' is.

Problem may have developed after installing wget and opera.

Thanks in advance.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I'm using a USB dongle (RealTek) to connect to wifi, I installed non-free drivers for the device.

Please be more specific. The kernel already includes drivers for most RealTek devices but if the official Debian ISO images are used to install then the device firmware will be missing.

Otherwise see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ne ... ss#Realtek for some suggestions.

[darkcity]

Thanks for the reply. I install Debian XFCE via usb stick graphical installer. Then I installed firmware-realtek from https://packages.debian.org/buster/firmware-realtek

The device is rtl8168, and I believe the driver being used is:

rtl8168g-2.fw

[stevepusser]

The Realtek 8168 is a wired Ethernet NIC.

We need the actual wi-fi device chipset. Try lsusb if it doesn't show up in lspci.

Your kind of connection dropouts can often be fixed by turning off automatic power saving for the driver in a .conf file, and you'll have to create one depending on what driver your device is really using.

[sunrat]

The device is rtl8168, and I believe the driver being used is:

rtl8168g-2.fw

That's the firmware, not the driver. Driver is probably rtl8168 but you can confirm with lspci -k .

[stevepusser]

From the first post:

'm using a USB dongle (RealTek) to connect to wifi,

They must use

Code: Select all

 lsusb -k

, since that will help show the kernel module in use.

[darkcity]

Thanks for the replies

I think the device is acutally RTL8188, but will double check next time I'm on the machine. I will also lsusb -k (or and lspci -k) for full details.

- - -

Actually, changing the wifi mode, in nm-connection-editor, from 'client' to 'hotspot' seems to have helped.