[TriLUG] Wifi performance

[Rick DeNatale]

I've been trying to figure out why the network performance on my
laptop isn't as good as I'd like.

This is the only wireless device in the house.  Here's some data:

rick at bill:~$ uptime
 09:21:38 up 18:53,  1 user,  load average: 0.32, 0.63, 0.48
rick at bill:~$ ifconfig ath0
ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:20:E0:37:4D:E9
          inet addr:192.168.0.53  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::220:e0ff:fe37:4de9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1148962 errors:404992 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:404992
          TX packets:886468 errors:175 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:200
          RX bytes:346523118 (330.4 MiB)  TX bytes:98817802 (94.2 MiB)
          Interrupt:11 Memory:d0aa0000-d0ab0000

rick at bill:~$ iwconfig ath0
ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"DenHavenII"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:0F:66:42:A0:C6
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=42/94  Signal level=-53 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:175  Invalid misc:175   Missed beacon:0

Is the rate of frame errors on received frames unusual for an 802.11
connection?  It seems to be to me, but I don't have anything to
benchmark it against.  If it is, what should I look at to try to fix
it?  I did change the fragmentation threshold on the wireless access
point (which is a Linksys WRT54G running the linksys firmware v4.20.7)
from the default of 2346 down to 2300 which (subjectively) seems to
have helped a bit.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

--
Rick DeNatale

Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site
http://www.mercuryspacecraft.com/