WL-1700USB connection unstable

[kristian]

Hello,

For about 6 months now I have been using the WL-1700USB wireless adapter. I am using Kali and the rtl8187 driver, while my wireless is protected with WPA2-PSK.

After I connect to my router via the WL-1700USB adapter, everything works fine for a short while (about 10minutes), and after that the connection speed starts falling until it is completely frozen and i can't even ping Google, let alone open a web page.

The adapter works fine on windows, but so far every distribution and/or fix i tried works the same (I tried Debian 6 and 7, Arch linux, Ubuntu 11 and 12...).

I have tried lowering the rate, tx power and other options listed here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...ways_times_out

I tried playing with the channel settings for the wireless network on my router - same results.

Another strange think I noticed (although perhaps not relevant to the deterioration of speed) is that the blue LED light on the adapter is always blinking extremely rapidly in all linux distros I tried. While on Windows, it blinks depending on the current amount of network traffic (although, even when i am downloading something at full speed on windows the LED light does not blink that rapidly!). Perhaps this would indicate that the adapter is sending a large amount of (random?) traffic and the router just blacklists it for a while? This seams farfetched and I don't think there is such a mechanism on the router. Not sure how to check though...

The router is Thomson Gateway TG782 (Software Release 8.6.Q.3).
Since the adapter works normally in windows, I suspect it is a driver issue.

Below is a listing of lsusb.
You can see that it is recognized as AirLive WL-1600USB, instead of 1700USB (not sure if this matters).

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1b75:8187 Ovislink Corp. AirLive WL-1600USB 802.11g Adapter [Realtek RTL8187L]
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 041e:4071 Creative Technology, Ltd
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 04a9:10c1 Canon, Inc.
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 046d:0b02 Logitech, Inc. BT Mini-Receiver (HID proxy mode)
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 003: ID 046d:c70e Logitech, Inc. MX1000 Bluetooth Laser Mouse
Bus 007 Device 004: ID 046d:c70a Logitech, Inc. MX5000 Cordless Desktop

I tried sniffing the traffic with wireshark once it becomes slow. The only thing I notice is that all TCP connections are being reset.
The log file can be downloaded here. What you see is the result of network traffic from the command aptitude full-upgrade
The command itself just hangs, if I try to surf the web I also hangs.

iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"xxxxx"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.452 GHz  Access Point: xxxxxxx   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=49/70  Signal level=-61 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

I should also note that everything works fine on windows (I have only the one router). I also have other computers in my household that occasionally connect network connected to the same wifi (the same router) and this sort of tproblem never happens. I have a laptop with the exact same version of Kali and wifi works great.

So the only thing I can come up with is that it is related to the adapter - just not sure how and why since its a pretty well supported device (or at least the 1600 is...).

Hope I gave enough information for someone to point me in the right direction.
Any feedback regarding this issue is greatly appreciated!

[MasterButcher]

I used this wireless adapter almost 3 years and in Kali linux works great for me.
I have dualboot Kali with windows 7 ultimate .
Also I use 32 bit version and don't have any errors with this great wireless adapter.

[ArthurBorsboom]

I have got the same issue on Kali x64 (kernel 3.7) and Lubuntu (kernel 3.10).

Any suggestions?

[truant]

Hello i too have this wireless card(airlive WL-1700USB), when i do "lsusb" i get this:

Bus 002 Device 007: ID 1b75:8187 Ovislink Corp. AirLive WL-1600USB 802.11g Adapter [Realtek RTL8187L]

And card works on i would say about 30% of max range/power, i can find more networks with my integrated wifi card.
And when i plug this wl-1700USB in win7 with proper drivers it works perfectly good.

So then i went on official site to get drivers, untar them read the readme file and after "make" i get this:

root@kali:~/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release# make
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.0.0-kali1-686-pae'
Makefile:10: *** mixed implicit and normal rules: deprecated syntax
  CC [M]  /root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_softmac.o
  CC [M]  /root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_rx.o
/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_rx.c: In function ‘is_duplicate_packet’:
/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_rx.c:407:3: error: implicit declaration of function ‘__list_for_each’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
   __list_for_each(p, &ieee->ibss_mac_hash[index]) {
   ^
/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_rx.c:407:51: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘{’ token
   __list_for_each(p, &ieee->ibss_mac_hash[index]) {
                                                   ^
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors
/usr/src/linux-headers-4.0.0-kali1-common/scripts/Makefile.build:263: recipe for target '/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_rx.o' failed
make[4]: *** [/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211/ieee80211_rx.o] Error 1
/usr/src/linux-headers-4.0.0-kali1-common/Makefile:1407: recipe for target '_module_/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211' failed
make[3]: *** [_module_/root/Downloads/rtl8187L_linux_26.1037.1217.2008_release/ieee80211] Error 2
Makefile:145: recipe for target 'sub-make' failed
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
Makefile:8: recipe for target 'all' failed
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.0.0-kali1-686-pae'
Makefile:14: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

any help, please?
p.s. sorry for my bad english.