[Solved] Reinstall of Debian 12 with XFCE has slower Wi-Fi than previous Cinnamon install

[ThanCrc]

Recently reinstalled Debian due to some issues. Previous install had Cinnamon default, which I later changed to XFCE via command line install. Then I had to do a full reinstall of Debian, I decided to choose the XFCE install image because i preferred it over Cinnamon. Both installs were on Debian 12.
While everything else works great, for some reason the Wi-Fi speed is noticeably slower, on Cinnamon I had consistent 10mb/s downloading steam games and various packages, now on XFCE i barely get 1-2mb/s. I think i chose the live install image option both times, so the only difference would be in desktop environments.
Running

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lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net && iwconfig

shows:

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01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:c821]
	DeviceName: WLAN
	Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [103c:884d]
	Kernel driver in use: rtw_8821ce
	Kernel modules: rtw88_8821ce, rtw_8821ce
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 15)
	DeviceName: Hanksville Gbe Lan Connection
	Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [103c:8905]
	Kernel driver in use: r8169
	Kernel modules: r8169
	
lo        no wireless extensions.

eno1      no wireless extensions.

wlo1      IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"*******************"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: CC:32:E5:7B:96:05   
          Bit Rate=135 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=59/70  Signal level=-51 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:3   Missed beacon:0

Looking around online, it seems like this card has a lot of issues on linux, so i might just get it replaced. I've tried: turning off power management (which made a small improvement), installing drivers from the rtw88 github repo by lwfinger, which didn't seem to have any effect. I also looked in /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/ for a configuration file, but there seemed to be none.

So, is there some kind of config setting present in the Cinnamon install, which is for some reason missing in the XFCE image? Is it just a problem with this specific Wi-Fi card?

[arzgi]

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arto@dell:~$ uname -a
Linux dell 6.1.0-10-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.38-2 (2023-07-27) x86_64 GNU/Linux
arto@dell:~$ 

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arto@dell:~$ apt-file search 8821ce   
linux-image-6.1.0-27-amd64: /lib/modules/6.1.0-27-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-27-amd64-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/6.1.0-27-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-27-amd64-unsigned: /lib/modules/6.1.0-27-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-27-rt-amd64: /lib/modules/6.1.0-27-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-27-rt-amd64-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/6.1.0-27-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-27-rt-amd64-unsigned: /lib/modules/6.1.0-27-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-29-amd64: /lib/modules/6.1.0-29-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-29-amd64-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/6.1.0-29-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-29-amd64-unsigned: /lib/modules/6.1.0-29-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-29-rt-amd64: /lib/modules/6.1.0-29-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-29-rt-amd64-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/6.1.0-29-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-29-rt-amd64-unsigned: /lib/modules/6.1.0-29-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-30-amd64: /lib/modules/6.1.0-30-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-30-amd64-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/6.1.0-30-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-30-amd64-unsigned: /lib/modules/6.1.0-30-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-30-rt-amd64: /lib/modules/6.1.0-30-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-30-rt-amd64-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/6.1.0-30-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
linux-image-6.1.0-30-rt-amd64-unsigned: /lib/modules/6.1.0-30-rt-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821ce.ko
arto@dell:~$ 

You should not need anything from the github. Also selected desktop does have nothing to do with wifi. But if you have found that device does not work well in Linux, maybe try an other.

[ThanCrc]

Yeah, I wasn't really expecting there to be a difference, but considering that it was the only difference between the installs, that's all I really had to work with.
And, just came home and restarted my laptop, for some reason the Wi-Fi works fine now. So ???, really no clue what caused it or fixed it, but it seems to be working now, so I'll mark the topic as solved I guess?
I'm going to guess that it was either a driver that wasn't working before reboot, or secure boot being enabled..

[arzgi]

Ok, that is also my experince, that wifi speed varies a lot.

The driver is in newer kernels, as I showed above. Install one of them and reboot.

What driver are you know using?

[ThanCrc]

I uninstalled the github driver last night and went back to the built-in one (rtw_8821ce?), which didn't have any effect after restarting then, but now it works..
Strange how it didn't work until now, though. But now the speed seems to be pretty stable, no disconnects or slow downs anymore, went back to how it was during my Cinnamon install (10mb/s)

[arzgi]

That is fine, happy Debian!

[ThanCrc]

Yep, thanks!