[Hetoft]

Hi,

Has anyone managed to succesfully establish a stable 5 GHz wifi connection to the RPi3?

Recently bought a Raspberry Pi 3, and after having done some research, the Edimax EW-7811UTC wifi USB adapter to go with it.

Managed to get OpenElec to run on it, connecting to my 5 GHz network was easy enough, but every time I try to stream an online video or connect to my shared external HDD, I get dropouts / it loses the connection momentarily. Very inconvenient. Can't even get through a whole episode of GoT without losing connection at some point.

I also tried OSMC, but it doesn't make any difference. Same dropouts. None of my other devices (eg. my Chromecast connected to same TV) have this issue. It works just fine on 2.4 GHz band, but that is just a lot slower and more congested where I am.

Can anyone tell me how I can make the connection good without dropouts? Will gladly buy another wifi dongle if it will then work...

I am unfortunately not able to use a wired connection as my router is in the far end of the other room and I'm not allowed / not able to make a hole in the wall.

My setup:
-----------
- Raspberry Pi 3
- OpenELEC 7.0 Beta 3 / OSMC June 2016
- Edimax EW-7811UTC
- TP-Link Archer C9 v2 (with most recent firmware, recently reset and reconfigured)

Thanks so much in advance!

[loggio]

Have you tested the dongle on a laptop in the same location? Do you get drop outs?
Could be your router also. Try a different channel for your 5ghz, see if that helps.

[Hetoft]

Have you tested the dongle on a laptop in the same location? Do you get drop outs?
Could be your router also. Try a different channel for your 5ghz, see if that helps.

Thanks for the reply.

I can connect just fine using my laptop on the same 5 GHz network with no dropouts at all.

Also, I have tried every available channel on the 5 GHz network (though the EW-7811UTC only supports band 1 and 2), but with the same results, unfortunately. :/

[loggio]

This probably won't fix it... But just in case it's a power issue have you added
max_usb_current=1
To your config.txt for of the pi?

This will allow more power to the usb ports. not sure What the power requirements of a 5ghz usb dongle are ... But I assume it's a bit more than your standard usb device.


Other than that, not sure what you can do other than try a new dongle.
I personally would never use wifi for streaming any local content, I've never had pleasing results using wifi in this case. And I have a pretty fast network setup at home.

But I guess you're limited in that case. Best of luck.
Hopeful someone else can help you.

Cheers.

[Hetoft]

This probably won't fix it... But just in case it's a power issue have you added
max_usb_current=1
To your config.txt for of the pi?

This will allow more power to the usb ports. not sure What the power requirements of a 5ghz usb dongle are ... But I assume it's a bit more than your standard usb device.


Other than that, not sure what you can do other than try a new dongle.
I personally would never use wifi for streaming any local content, I've never had pleasing results using wifi in this case. And I have a pretty fast network setup at home.

But I guess you're limited in that case. Best of luck.
Hopeful someone else can help you.

Cheers.

Good suggestions. I am actually using the wifi dongle on PiHut's official powered USB hub. I also tried plugging it directly into the Pi, but with the same results. FYI, using the max_usb_current has no effect on a rPi3, as per: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt...95#p930695

Probably going to try a new dongle, as you suggest. Just so frustrating!

[d'Wooluf]

There have been a few Edimax 5Ghz threads. I've bumped one for you. Well, me too. I'm interested but 2.4 GHz seems to meet my modest needs.

[Hetoft]

There have been a few Edimax 5Ghz threads. I've bumped one for you. Well, me too. I'm interested but 2.4 GHz seems to meet my modest needs.

Yeah, I've read pretty much everything I could find, but so far it seems only a couple have managed to confirm that it indeed should work (5 GHz on EW-7811UTC). Hope someone can help us here.

[Hetoft]

Quick update: tried moving the Pi right next to the router. Same disconnections. So it's definitely not about the range of 5 GHz.

[MikeB2013]

It might be wifi power management causing the disconnects - I have had this problem in the past with various wifi dongles.

This thread may help https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-420-page-2.html

Mike

[d'Wooluf]

I don't know exactly what SaintNick means here...

[EDIT, Solved]
The EW-7811UTC only supports 5GHz band 1 and 2, according to Edimax support. That translates to lower channel/freq. It works for me now, though not yet able to report on stability or speed.

but I took a punt and made a couple of changes in my router's settings for 5Ghz wireless. I changed Channel Bandwidth from 20/40/80 to 40 and I changed Control Channel from Auto to 40 (just because it was a low number). I played most of a high-bandwidth movie without any dropouts. Before that it was unusable. So, that's promising. I'll keep testing and let you know. I'm using a Netgear R7000 running Merlin WXRT firmware.

[Hetoft]

It might be wifi power management causing the disconnects - I have had this problem in the past with various wifi dongles.

This thread may help https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-420-page-2.html

Mike

Thanks, but the power management is actually already turned off (it was by default in the OpenELEC / OSMC build from sometime in 2015 and onwards, AFAIK). Terminal also reporting it turned off.

I don't know exactly what SaintNick means here..

[EDIT, Solved]
The EW-7811UTC only supports 5GHz band 1 and 2, according to Edimax support. That translates to lower channel/freq. It works for me now, though not yet able to report on stability or speed.

but I took a punt and made a couple of changes in my router's settings for 5Ghz wireless. I changed Channel Bandwidth from 20/40/80 to 40 and I changed Control Channel from Auto to 40 (just because it was a low number). I played most of a high-bandwidth movie without any dropouts. Before that it was unusable. So, that's promising. I'll keep testing and let you know. I'm using a Netgear R7000 running Merlin WXRT firmware.

Thanks. Good to hear you managed to get it going properly. I tried setting up my wifi the same way using the same channels, but to no avail. Still getting the same dropouts. I'm almost certain it's a driver issue with the EW-7811UTC on OpenELEC/OSMC. So I just ordered a new wifi dongle; the OSMC one, from here: https://osmc.tv/store/product/802-11ac-wifi-dongle/

Let's see what happens...

If anyone has any more tips or stuff I could try, let me know!

[d'Wooluf]

I queued up some movies in 720p and 1080p and let it run. It went for six hours before I stopped it. With the old settings it would freeze before eventually returning to the gui. Six hours of continuous video seems pretty good. I agree that it seems to be a driver issue. It's almost as if the driver is misrepresenting the unit's capabilities to the router. Throttling back the bandwidth at the router may not be the ideal solution though. I'll stay with 5GHz AC for a while to see if the stability holds over time. Not a big issue for me though. Where I live my own networks are usually the only ones visible. 2.4Ghz works fine.

[nickrob84]

It might be wifi power management causing the disconnects - I have had this problem in the past with various wifi dongles.

This thread may help https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread-420-page-2.html

Mike

Thanks, but the power management is actually already turned off (it was by default in the OpenELEC / OSMC build from sometime in 2015 and onwards, AFAIK). Terminal also reporting it turned off.

I don't know exactly what SaintNick means here..

[EDIT, Solved]
The EW-7811UTC only supports 5GHz band 1 and 2, according to Edimax support. That translates to lower channel/freq. It works for me now, though not yet able to report on stability or speed.

but I took a punt and made a couple of changes in my router's settings for 5Ghz wireless. I changed Channel Bandwidth from 20/40/80 to 40 and I changed Control Channel from Auto to 40 (just because it was a low number). I played most of a high-bandwidth movie without any dropouts. Before that it was unusable. So, that's promising. I'll keep testing and let you know. I'm using a Netgear R7000 running Merlin WXRT firmware.

Thanks. Good to hear you managed to get it going properly. I tried setting up my wifi the same way using the same channels, but to no avail. Still getting the same dropouts. I'm almost certain it's a driver issue with the EW-7811UTC on OpenELEC/OSMC. So I just ordered a new wifi dongle; the OSMC one, from here: https://osmc.tv/store/product/802-11ac-wifi-dongle/

Let's see what happens...

If anyone has any more tips or stuff I could try, let me know!

I changed then 5ghz settings on my router to the lower bands and has been rock solid on my RPi3/LE.

[jonhocking]

I had a similar issue with a different device - however, this is worth a try.

On your ROUTER, find the config page for your SSIDs - this will vary router to router.
Usually you will find the same SSID is used for 5 and 2.4GHz. Create a new SSID for the 5GHz, so that you have SSID1 for 2.4 and SSID2 for 5.

This will prevent your device attaching to the original SSID, at 5, then finding the 2.4 on the same SSID and trying to switch (and vice versa) - my router was a HomeHub 5. Your milage may vary.

[Hetoft]

I had a similar issue with a different device - however, this is worth a try.

On your ROUTER, find the config page for your SSIDs - this will vary router to router.
Usually you will find the same SSID is used for 5 and 2.4GHz. Create a new SSID for the 5GHz, so that you have SSID1 for 2.4 and SSID2 for 5.

This will prevent your device attaching to the original SSID, at 5, then finding the 2.4 on the same SSID and trying to switch (and vice versa) - my router was a HomeHub 5. Your milage may vary.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've already set it up using two different SSID's for the 2.4 and 5 GHz band.