Pinebook Pro Initial Impressions

[richfm]

I think that answers will be more "community supported" than some tech person with a dedicated job.
And to be more specific, we're the test drivers.. So with that comes all of us working together for answers.

WiFi is not a strong point with these devices, BUT there's been discussion earlier of software improvements to make WiFi better. We'll see.

In the meantime, please read through the forum posts and you may get some info that will help with some of this.

And to any question that starts out with "Should I try..." ABSOLUTELY!!! As we're all learning here, anything that helps move us toward greater enlightenment has gotta be a plus....And maybe, get us closer to a Pinebook Pro smooth operation :-)

Rick, thanks for your reply.  I understand this is a community project but what if my wifi problem is a hardware problem?  I've tried everything everyone has suggested as you can see from my posts but it's almost impossible to use the PVP with any internet application. I've seen no one else here describing this problem so I'm assuming my PVP problem is unique. It's not that wifi is a weak point, it's practically unusable. I'm used to working with Linux on arm chromebooks so know something about the architecture. I'm flashing the original debian img file to the PVP now so we'll see.   However it's been a week since I received the device and have not been able to get it working satisfactorily yet.

You're welcome!

Clearly, there's a chance you could of got a klinker piece of hardware.

If it were me, I'd open a support request. From the pine64.org "start" page, along the top is tab listed as "Order Support". Click on it and submit a ticket (did I miss you've already done this?) for the problem. I, for one, will be interested to see how that plays out. If you're dissatisfied with that, perhaps a PM to an administrator, founder or someone like Luke might help it along....

There's absolutely no doubt that, despite best efforts, a hardware glitch could get through. You'll be helping not only yourself, but the rest of us see how the support function works here...

Does that help? :-)

Yes it does help, thanks. I've contacted tech support. I'll keep you posted.

Good Luck & Please do!

We'll all benefit from your experience!!! Standing by!! :-)

I found this in the PBP wiki and it seems to speed up wifi. "If having issues with wifi connectivity, try to disable power management in the 8723cs module options, adding rtw_power_mgnt=0 in /etc/modprobe.d/8723cs.conf

options 8723cs rtw_initmac=00:ba:ch:16:85:46 rtw_power_mgnt=0"

I didn't find a file named /etc/modprobe.d/8723cs.conf in the modprobe.d folder so I created one as root and copied the text "rtw_initmac=00:ba:ch:16:85:46 rtw_power_mgnt=0" and rebooted. Seems to help.

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