I tried getting some help on the Bazzite Discord but I got no response. I’m trying here.
I am getting very slow download speeds on wifi while using Bazzite specifically. I’m dual booted with Window 11 on its own separate drive and the issue isn’t a problem there, nor am I experiencing generally slow internet on any other device. Here is my wifi speed test on Bazzite when communicating to the most local server to me:
Due to the age of my account here, I can’t post images of my other speed tests. The speed test for wifi on Bazzite is clocking about 23.60 Mbps and Win 11 is clocking 472.65 Mbps which is the expected speed range I should be getting. I’m also getting around 470 Mbps on my other devices (phone, tablet, other computers). Ethernet speed tests are more or less the same between the OSs: 90-95 Mbps.
I looked around to find some troubleshooting steps on reddit, github, discord, and this forum and attempted those steps from people running into similar issues. Here is what I’ve tried:
-Set metered connection to “no”. Issue persists.
-Turned off IPv6. Issue persists
-Turned off power-saver mode. Issue persists.
-Tested with iwd on and off. issue persists regardless.
-Did a system update yesterday. issue persists.
I use the built in wifi card that shipped with my mobo. Mobo is ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO BTF and built in card is Intel WiFi AX211. The only primary difference between the Windows 11 and Bazzite installation unique to wifi is that I had to install the asus driver for the wifi card to get it to connect to my network. Bazzite worked OOB. But since I’m getting expected speeds on everything else, it doesn’t seem like the asus driver is doing anything uniquely special.
Does anybody have any ideas on some additional troubleshooting steps I can take to improve the wifi performance short of doing a full reinstall of the distro? I’m not quiet sure where to go from here beyond doing the distro reinstall hail mary. Also if anybody needs anymore info about my system for troubleshooting, let me know.
If you already did sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi-powersave.conf and pasted [connection] wifi.powersave = 2 , then restarted with: sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager and it’s still slow, then you need to have both ip4 and ip6 turned on. No kidding, I don’t know why, but yeah, don’t turn off ip6. I know it looks irrelevant, but I did my testing and you still need it for some sites.
I have just been through this exact issue, is your upload speed the same on both windows and Bazzite, but your download speeds are throttled? That was the case for me, and my fix (if i remember correctly, i tried so many different things) was to force the card to use wifi 5 instead of 6, as it was more stable. I went through a lot of troubleshooting with Gemini and i was able to get it working at full speed after an hour or so of back and fourth lmao. I just went to look for the chat but i deleted it! Hope this gives you something to try.
I tried this and confirmed both ipv4 and ipv6 are on. The issue persists. Originally when I had tested the ipv6 solution and it didn’t work, I turned it back on as it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I’m getting slower download and upload speeds in general on Bazzite wifi compared to ethernet and windows (both wifi and ethernet). But I’m attempting to try this regardless however it looks like I am on wifi 5, at least I think so. I’m seeing the 5ghz band and I’m connected to it, but speed isn’t improving. I even just tried switching to 2.4ghz just to check a potential solution box but no dice. Perhaps I am going about it wrong. Is there a way I can check and see to confirm that you know of? Gemini is hallucinating on me when I try to work with it.
This line of code will list all your WiFi cards/dongles and tell you what they’re connected to and with what type of connection:
iw dev | grep Interface | awk ‘{print $2}’ | xargs -I {} iw dev {} link
If you’re connected through WiFi 6 it will show HE, if WiFi 5 it will show VHT. If you can’t see HE or VHT, look for 802.11ax (WiFi 6) or 802.ac (WiFi 5).
Have you tried using the terminal to force WiFi 5?
The ghz seem in line with what to expect on wifi 5 with what little I know but I went ahead a looked into trying to use the terminal to force wifi 5 just incase I’m wrong:
nmcli connection modify "my ssid" wifi.band a
sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager
Didn’t seem to make a difference if I even did it right. I’m learning as I go here. Download and upload is still capping at ~20mbps.
That code is forcing your wifi to use only the 5ghz frequency. I’m talking about the generation of WiFi, (WiFi 4, WiFi 5, WiFi 6, WiFi 6E) not the connection band, 2.4ghz or 5ghz. The driver that you installed from asus could be forcing you onto WiFi 4 or could be defaulting to 6, but WiFi 5 is much more stable which is what i found through my testing. The rx and tx bitrates are very low, which could be suggesting your card is using WiFi 4 currently?
Bazzite should have WiFi working oob, so I’m unsure why you have had to install an additional driver. especially since your wifi card is very compatible with linux. could be an issue with the asus driver you installed
I’m also learning while on the go, so i honestly could be talking a load of rubbish, but this is what worked for me.
The driver is installed on the windows side and windows side is getting expected speeds of ~430Mbps. In Bazzite, it worked OOB so I didn’t install anything. Whatever the problem is, it’s specific to Bazzite and however it is handling my wifi card. I have no idea how to change to a different version of wifi or how to verify what version of wifi I’m currently on unless there is another method than what’s been suggested so far. I’m a noob with Bazzite myself, so I’m learning as I go also. Everything I’ve looked up so far references the frequency.
Unfortunately I was unable to find any solution to the issue. I attempted a wipe and a fresh install and was pulling the same unacceptable speed tests on the live image as well. Whatever the issue is, it lies with Bazzite. It’s a shame I was unable to fix the issue. I’ll have to try my luck with a different distro. I’ll mark this as the solution to close but this was a non-solution.
