Internet speed on freebsd 13.0 is extremely slow

I just installed freebsd 13.0 on my lenovo thinkpad x260. I also have debian and windows 10 installed on the same laptop in different partitions.

On both debian and window 10, when I use fast.com, I can easily get 400mbps on wireless.

However, on my freebsd, for both wired and wireless, I can only seem to get 20mbps.

I am not sure where to begin to fix this, I just started using freebsd and only just figured out how to connect to the internet. I want to try to understand what is going on. I have spent the last to days reading documentation and trying to find posts in forums from people with similar problems, but I can seem to solve it their way.

I would really appreciate some guidance. I really want to learn how to use this OS.

The output of my ifconfig wlan0 look like this,

Code:
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
    inet6 fe80::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
    inet 192.168.1.xxx netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
    groups: wlan
    ssid xxxxxxxx channel 36 (5180 MHz 11a) bssid xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
    regdomain APAC2 country XX authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON
    deftxkey UNDEF AES-CCM 3:128-bit txpower 17 bmiss 10 mcastrate 6
    mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 60 wme roaming MANUAL
    parent interface: iwm0
    media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/54Mbps mode 11a
    status: associated
    nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

My /etc/rc.conf looks like this,

Code:
zfs_enable="YES"
clear_tmp_enable="YES"
hostname="freebsd"
keymap="us.kbd"
wlans_iwm0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"
# ifconfig_DEFAULT="SYNCDHCP -rxcsum -txcsum -lro -tso -vlanhwtso"
create_args_wlan0="country SG regdomain APAC2"
local_unbound_enable="YES"
sshd_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
ntpdate_enable="YES"
ntpd_enable="YES"
powerd_enable="YES"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="AUTO"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
slim_enable="YES"
kld_list="i915kms"
ifconfig_em0="DHCP"
ifconfig_vtnet0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
ipv6_activate_all_interfaces="YES"

The output from my sudo ifconfig wlan0 list sta looks like this,

Code:
ADDR               AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE  TXSEQ  RXSEQ CAPS FLAG        
xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx   32   36  54M 38.0    0  35896  27568 EP   AQ           RSN BSSLOAD HTCAP VHTCAP VHTOPMODE VHTPWRENV WME (rssi 0.0:0.0:0.0:0.0 nf 0:0:0:0)

The output from sudo ifconfig wlan0 list roam looks like this,

Code:
    roam:11a     rssi    7dBm rate 12 Mb/s
    roam:11b     rssi    7dBm rate  1 Mb/s
    roam:11g     rssi    7dBm rate  5 Mb/s

When I try to change the speed using this commands, sudo ifconfig wlan0 mode 11n, this is the error

Code:
ifconfig: SIOCSIFMEDIA (media): Device not configured

When I try, sudo ifconfig wlan0 roam:rate 1000, I get
Code:
ifconfig: SIOCS80211: Invalid argument
 
Welcome to FreeBSD Forums.

… on my freebsd, for both wired and wireless, I can only seem to get 20mbps. …

What's the wireless hardware?

I used to get less than 10 on FreeBSD, alongside Windows getting around 9x as fast from the same router. I'm not sure when or how things improved, but (with 14.0-CURRENT) the slowness with Wi-Fi seems to be a thing of the past.

<https://bsd-hardware.info/?computer=6fbb1f806232>

… freebsd 13.0 …

Which version, exactly?

freebsd-version -kru ; uname -aKU
 
Welcome to FreeBSD Forums.



What's the wireless hardware?

I used to get less than 10 on FreeBSD, alongside Windows getting around 9x as fast from the same router. I'm not sure when or how things improved, but (with 14.0-CURRENT) the slowness with Wi-Fi seems to be a thing of the past.

<https://bsd-hardware.info/?computer=6fbb1f806232>



Which version, exactly?

freebsd-version -kru ; uname -aKU
Here is the output

Code:
13.0-RELEASE-p11
13.0-RELEASE-p11
13.0-RELEASE-p11
FreeBSD freebsd 13.0-RELEASE-p11 FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p11 #0: Tue Apr  5 18:54:35 UTC 2022     root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC  amd64 1300139 1300139

Is there a way I can upgrade to freebsd 14?

Or do a fresh install without disrupting my Windows 10 and debian installs?
 

Essentials​

Please, what's the wireless hardware?

From wlans_iwm0="wlan0" in your opening post, we can tell that the iwm(4) driver is in use, however this covers a broad range of (Intel IEEE 802.11ac) hardware.

I see Intel Wireless 8260 at <https://bsd-hardware.info/?d=FreeBSD&probe=f53c625efd#pci:8086-24f3-8086-0130> for someone's ThinkPad X260 20F5A28AUK, I can't guess whether this differs from your X260.

8260 near the foot of <https://bsd-hardware.info/?d=FreeBSD&probe=f53c625efd&log=pciconf>. Please run this command:

pciconf -lv | grep -A 14 0x028000



Is there a way I can upgrade to freebsd 14?

Yes, however it involves building and installing from source code, which is probably not what's wanted by a newcomer.

More importantly, I can not be certain that it'll resolve the issue(s) in your case, because in mine:

I'm not sure when or how things improved,

– and FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT is not release quality (not recommended for a newcomer to FreeBSD).

Re: the second of the visualisations at <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/564808> – FreeBSD development lifecycle – think green is good (like, RELEASE is more stable than STABLE). If anything there doesn't make sense, and you can't find an explanation elsewhere, feel free to ask over there (the FreeBSD release engineering topic).

… a fresh install without disrupting my Windows 10 and debian installs?

You could build and install from the source code for 13.0-RELEASE-p11, however I don't imagine this helping in your case.
 

Essentials​

Please, what's the wireless hardware?

From wlans_iwm0="wlan0" in your opening post, we can tell that the iwm(4) driver is in use, however this covers a broad range of (Intel IEEE 802.11ac) hardware.

I see Intel Wireless 8260 at <https://bsd-hardware.info/?d=FreeBSD&probe=f53c625efd#pci:8086-24f3-8086-0130> for someone's ThinkPad X260 20F5A28AUK, I can't guess whether this differs from your X260.

8260 near the foot of <https://bsd-hardware.info/?d=FreeBSD&probe=f53c625efd&log=pciconf>. Please run this command:

pciconf -lv | grep -A 14 0x028000





Yes, however it involves building and installing from source code, which is probably not what's wanted by a newcomer.

More importantly, I can not be certain that it'll resolve the issue(s) in your case, because in mine:



– and FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT is not release quality (not recommended for a newcomer to FreeBSD).

Re: the second of the visualisations at <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/564808> – FreeBSD development lifecycle – think green is good (like, RELEASE is more stable than STABLE). If anything there doesn't make sense, and you can't find an explanation elsewhere, feel free to ask over there (the FreeBSD release engineering topic).



You could build and install from the source code for 13.0-RELEASE-p11, however I don't imagine this helping in your case.
This is the output from that command,

Code:
iwm0@pci0:4:0:0:    class=0x028000 rev=0x3a hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x24f3 subvendor=0x8086 subdevice=0x0130
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'Wireless 8260'
    class      = network
 
Code:
  Currently,	iwm only supports 802.11b and 802.11g modes.  It will not as-
     sociate to	access points that are configured to operate only in 802.11n
     or	802.11ac modes.
iwn(4)
 
Code:
  Currently,    iwm only supports 802.11b and 802.11g modes.  It will not as-
     sociate to    access points that are configured to operate only in 802.11n
     or    802.11ac modes.
iwn(4)
Then why am I also getting the same speed on the wired ethernet connection? On windows and debian my fast.com goes to 950 mbps. On my freebsd it only stays at 20 as well.
 
I'm not sure when or how things improved, but (with 14.0-CURRENT) the slowness with Wi-Fi seems to be a thing of the past.
These changes are in the 13/stable branch. No need to upgrade to -CURRENT.
But even iwlwifi doesn’t handle 802.11ax (or 802.11ac, AFAIK) so still behind windows or Linux drivers that support the fastest speeds.
 
anarchy89 please, can you recall which guide(s) you followed for installation of FreeBSD? The page addresses will be ideal, thanks.

hald_enable="YES"

You should remove that line. HAL died more than a year ago, which might mean that you followed an outdated guide.

… Disable your wireless interface to test this correctly.

anarchy89 if there's difficulty regaining an Internet connection (with your wired network) after e.g. ifconfig wlan0 down, please let us know.
 
Code:
  Currently,	iwm only supports 802.11b and 802.11g modes.  It will not as-
     sociate to	access points that are configured to operate only in 802.11n
     or	802.11ac modes.
iwn(4)

Please, can you link to a relevant commit?

I tried, repeatedly, to find something a few weeks ago; and there's no mention of iwn(4)n – in the current draft of release notes for 13.1.
I think what SirDice meant was iwm(4).
However, it seems that iwm(4) will be taken over by iwlwifi(4):
DESCRIPTION
The iwlwifi driver is derived from Intel's Linux iwlwifi driver and pro-
vides support for all chipsets supported by the mvm part of that driver.
iwlwifi will be a successor to iwm(4) and may superseed that driver in
the future. It still complements the iwn(4) driver which supports older
chipsets.

The driver uses the linuxkpi_wlan and linuxkpi compat framework to bridge
between the Linux and native FreeBSD driver code as well as to the native
net80211(4) wireless stack.

While iwlwifi supports all 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax the compatibility code
currently only supports 802.11 a/b/g modes. Support for 802.11 n/ac is
to come. 802.11ax and 6Ghz support are planned.
as was committed to stable/13 on 2022-01-09 02:39 per commit
 

Understood, thanks.

I'm curious about iwn

I used to get less than 10 … not sure when or how things improved, but (with 14.0-CURRENT) the slowness with Wi-Fi seems to be a thing of the past.

<https://bsd-hardware.info/?computer=6fbb1f806232>

– iwn at <https://bsd-hardware.info/?d=FreeBSD&probe=c4dee3f070#pci:8086-0082-8086-1301> in the most recent result.
 
Please, can you link to a relevant commit?

I tried, repeatedly, to find something a few weeks ago; and there's no mention of iwn(4)n – in the current draft of release notes for 13.1.
iwm, what the OP is using, is superceded by iwlwifi and that is what I was talking about. It is merged in stable/13. I don't think iwn would work for the same hardware but frankly I can't keep track of the zillion different versions of wifi boards Intel made/sells!
 
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