Intel Wifi Drivers: Finally, a bodge!

A few weeks ago I did a post about the crazy beacon timings bug with Intel’s wireless drivers on Linux, and tried a few more things. I’m pleased to say I no longer have frequent disconnects (which got a lot worse on linux513), however there is the caveat that I no longer have a full speed 802.11ac connection. As for a complete fix, one hasn’t been found yet, and the thread has devolved into people’s vacation auto-reply emails

My Solution

Going off a couple comments, I edited a module config file /etc/modules.d/iwlwifi.conf and added the following line:

options iwlwifi swcrypto=1 11n_disable=1

The first option forces software encryption, since with the latest linux513 build, the previously harmless “unhandled algorithm” bug causes connection drops now. The section option disables 802.11n, which doesn’t effect the ability to connect to 2.5GHz or 5GHz networks, however it cuts my maximum speed to around 25Mbps, which is acceptable for me. Since, the only issue has been KDE complaining of limited connectivity, otherwise my connections have been stable, albeit at slower speed.