Looking for old Realtek wifi cards and USB adapters
Posted by rtl8821cerfe2@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 18 comments
Hi!
I'm looking for old Realtek wifi cards and USB adapters for my hobby, which is fixing/improving their Linux drivers:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?h=v7.1-rc2&qt=author&q=rtl8821cerfe2
If you're in the EU (+ Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein?) and you have a device you want to donate, please message me here or email me. (You can find my email address in any of the commits listed at the link above.)
Some of these devices can still be bought today, so money can help too.
- RTL8188SU / RTL8191SU / RTL8192SU
These USB adapters used to be supported by the r8712u module, but it was removed in kernel 6.13 because it used outdated APIs and no one did anything about that for years. r8712u probably can't support WPA3, so the goal is to add support for this chip to rtlwifi, which already supports the PCIe version.
- RTL8191SE / RTL8192SE
- RTL8723AE
- RTL8192CE
- RTL8192DE
- RTL8723BE
-
RTL8192EE / RTL8192EEBT
-
RTL8723AU
This was a ~special~ module used in some Lenovo Yoga laptops. I'm hoping it can be hooked up to a USB cable, since it uses USB to communicate with the system.
- RTL8188CUS
Lots of USB adapters used this chip but they're out of stock now.
- RTL8192DU with two USB interfaces ("bNumInterfaces 2" in lsusb)
This is an unusual USB adapter that can work in both the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band at the same time. Products that likely have this variant of the chip: SAPIDO AU-5125, SAPIDO AU-5015, Planex GW-USFang300, Planex GW-USDual300, Planex GW-USUltra300.
Newer devices are also welcome:
- RTL8821CU (wifi + bluetooth) / RTL8822BU (wifi + bluetooth) / RTL8812CU (wifi only)
These would be just to have a complete collection, as I already have other versions of these chips.
- RTL8723DE
- RTL8821CE
- RTL8822BE
- RTL8814AE
As far as I can tell this is only found in desktop cards, which I can't use unless it's actually a mini PCIe card in an adapter.
- RTL8852AE
- RTL8852BE
- RTL8852CE
- RTL8922AE
- RTL8922DE
az-hafez@reddit
I have a 2013 msi laptop that has RTL8723AE
But sadly I don't live in EU , and I still currently use the msi laptop
but I didn't think that someone might want to do some fixes for this device
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
How is it working for you?
az-hafez@reddit
it works fine (at least for basic usage)
I remember it had some issues before with some old kernels that made the internet slower
but I don't have huge issues with it for now
although I have an issue that also happens on windows 10 (it might not be related to linux) the issue happens when I connect my dualshock 4 controller to the laptop with bluetooth , the wifi network becomes significantly slower that the internet feels unusable until I use a wifi dongle or ethernet , or disconnecting my controller (the issue might also be related to my bluetooth adapter that's inside the laptop)
also if you want I might do more testing with my wifi adapter with things like speedtest on linux and windows to makesure I haven't miss out on some issues (because I didn't using speed test sites for a while)
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
2.4 GHz wifi gets slower when you use bluetooth because bluetooth also works on 2.4 GHz. I don't know how much slower is normal. The RTL8821AE gets very slow, almost unusable for 1080p youtube videos , but the newer RTL8822CE is much better.
az-hafez@reddit
after doing some tests with speedtest.net
it seems that the wifi card has slightly more stable download speeds under windows , and it has around 10 mbps slower upload speeds under linux compared to windows
Note: I'm using cachyos with kernel 7.0.10-1-cachyos
TechManWalker@reddit
Hi! Do you have some colleagues that does something like that with MediaTek cards? The
mt7921edriver is an utter piece of shit in its current state (the connection gets stuck in "Configuring interface" forever and sometimes it doesn't even connect).I have the MT7922 (14c3:0616) card btw.
bubblegumpuma@reddit
I feel like I'm smoking crack because I've had one for a while in my desktop and it's worked alright but I have seen/heard multiple people over the years complaining about it.
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
Maybe the problems only happen with some motherboards, or only some access points.
bubblegumpuma@reddit
Perhaps, pretty much all of my access points are either ath10k/11k driver-using or older Mediatek MIPS, all running OpenWRT and up to date. I imagine that overall fairly homogeneous stack helps me avoid some stupid edge cases.
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
I suppose you can also post here: https://github.com/morrownr/mt76/issues
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
Send all your MT7922 problems in a plain text email to linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org. There is a chance the people from Mediatek will fix it.
djfun@reddit
I unfortunately don't have hardware to donate, but as I fellow developer on the rtl8xxxu driver, I fully support your cause.
Mission-Sea8333@reddit
This is what motivated me to start learning about this stuff.
_alba4k@reddit
I think you might be a masochist if your hobby is messing around with realtek hardware
backtogeek@reddit
I guess it's a long-term project, I have at least a handful of 2 of them in a box in storage, I will bookmark this and drop you a message next time I visit my stuff.
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
Yes, there is no rush.
Mister001X@reddit
Ah the very pain of my existence rtl8821ce. Funnily the reverse engineered dkms module from github worked better than the in-kernel driver. I hate this piece of hardware so much.
Anyway I'm so glad the keyboard on my old HP laptop broke, so I could get a laptop without a realtek wifi card.
rtl8821cerfe2@reddit (OP)
My previous laptop had the RTL8821CE. It was working, but several times a day the connection kind of froze. Web pages would take 1-2 minutes to load, NetworkManager saying I had "limited connectivity".
The maintainer of rtw88 only had the version of the card with 2 antennas, which worked fine. Mine had 1 antenna.
This is what motivated me to start learning about this stuff. I thought that adding support for an older, simpler chip would be a good way to learn. And it was, but it took a while, long enough that I gave up on the RTL8821CE and sold that laptop. (It was a bad laptop, don't buy HP 250 G7.) Then some time later I got a USB adapter with the same chip and the same problem. And that's how that bug got fixed.