[arch-general] Broadcom B43 problems

[Curtis Shimamoto]

On 03/26/13 at 02:02pm, Sean Greenslade wrote:
> On Mar 26, 2013 11:56 AM, "Curtis Shimamoto" <sugar.and.scruffy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 03/26/13 at 01:37pm, Julien Pecqueur wrote:
> > > Which card did you bought?
> > >
> > > Cordialement,
> > >
> > > Julien Pecqueur
> >
> > There was a mention above about buying a Realtek card.  I just want to
> > mention that my experience with Realtek wireless chipsets has been
> > nothing but hell.
> >
> > My Thinkpad came with a Realtek that used the rtl8192ce module, and it
> > was terrible.  I recently was forced to try it again, and it had gotten
> > better, but was still of pretty questionable quality.
> >
> > The first time I replaced it I was able to flash a modified bios that
> > removed the Lenovo wifi card whitelist, and replaced it with an Intel
> > Centrino Advanced-N 6235 which was amazing.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Curtis Shimamoto
> > sugar.and.scruffy [at] gmail.com
> 
> Might I ask what problems you had? My experience with the 8192 was poor
> only because the drivers were in staging until the 3.0 kernel release. I
> switched to the 8188 in my netbook and the 8171 (maybe, my memory is
> failing me on that one) on my main laptop. Not all realtek chipsets are
> equal...

No not all Realtek chipsets are created equal.  My issues were with some
crazy latency any time I tried to do anything.  Once it started loading
something, likea  web page for instance, it was fine.  But getting to
that point was just really sluggish.  

The first time I used it was when I got my Thinkpad in mid 2012, and it
was so horribly painful it was awful.  It was so bad that it would
actually case other devices on the network to lose their connection
sometimes.  I am not sure how or why this would happen, but it wouldn't
if I were not connected.

The second time, was just a couple weeks ago when I had to have the mobo
replaced.  I now have the Lenovo wifi whitelist back, so I had to resort
to the Realtek.  It was much much better than the first time, but when I
got an Intel to stick in the machine, it was like night and day.

This particular module (the rtl8192ce) I see people having issues with
all the time on the forums.  So I know that the pain is not mine alone.

I have not had the chance to try other Realtek cards, but you are not the
first to tell me that there are others out there that work well.

Still this chipset seems to be particularly common today, so I just
wanted to throw this out there.  I think it was the rtl8188/8192?  I
don't know specifically w/o putting the card back into the machine.

-- 
Curtis Shimamoto
sugar.and.scruffy [at] gmail.com