Currently on
Arch Linux (
EndeavourOS Linux) but same problem occurs with multiple
Linux distributions:
- Run a distribution as Live USB User and everything, including WiFi, works perfectly.
- Install the distribution and nasty surprise, no WiFi. Ethernet is available so you connect cable to complete set-up.
- No standard Linux / Unix command will identify the trouble or restart WLAN. Frustrated, you turn off computer.
- Next day you turn on computer and WiFi automatically connects. But ...
- Whenever next reboot occurs, WiFi is gone again. No amount of additional rebooting or commands bring it back.
- You must fully shut down computer. Start it back up. As expected, WiFi connects. Until next reboot.
The closest hint I can find to this issue across Linux forums is a reported history of problems with Ralink chipsets. In my case specifically:
Ralink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe vendor: Lite-On driver: rt2800pci
An Arch wiki page states, "For devices which are using the RT3090 chip set it should be possible to use rt2800pci driver, however, is not working with this chip set very well (e.g. sometimes it is not possible to use higher rate than 2Mb/s)." Could the rt2800pci be at fault? Questionable given the reboot disconnections began with Linux Mint 19.3 Mate a month or so ago, and I've been using Linux distributions since March 2019 with consistent WiFi connections.
With Mint 19.3 Mate I was losing WiFi fairly often but rebooting would restore it. I switched to Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 (Cinnamon; Debian 10 Buster) and that's when rebooting began disconnecting the WLAN. Further, with LMDE 4 I often lost WiFi while online, something that so far occurred only once with EndeavourOS. I ran EndeavourOS briefly in my other computer, an Aspire E1, and WiFi was fine. However, high capacity microSD cards were unusable so I'm now running Mint 19.3 Xfce in the E1 and it has no notable networking problems other than one momentary WiFi loss during many hours of use. So I plan to replace the Z1620's EndeavourOS with 19.3 Xfce to see if there's an improvement. Curiously, I'm using the Xfce version of EndeavourOS that I suppose should be lighter than its Mint counterpart.
Below are my outputs for when WiFi drops, and for when it's working. I close by noting ACER shows the Z1620's "Wireless LAN Driver" as of 2012/12/04 as Atheros version 10.0.0.217. But there was a later production version that year with pure UEFI; mine is an earlier production model using a hybrid BIOS/UEFI setup. And Linux shows the correct driver is installed.
WHEN WIFI NOT WORKING:
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ iwconfiglo no wireless extensions.
enp3s0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:off/any Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm Retry short long limit:2 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$
WHEN WIFI WORKING:[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ iwconfiglo no wireless extensions.enp3s0 no wireless extensions.wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"wjbmedia" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: F8:8B:37:F5:B6:32 Bit Rate=19.5 Mb/s Tx-Power=30 dBm Retry short long limit:2 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-17 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:714 Missed beacon:0[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$
Thoughts, anyone? Thanks.