Wifi issues
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@jamesyboyjim Yikes! Something does sound up. Sadly, the next best step would be try try connecting up wired to make sure it's not an issue with the OS/Pi itself, but that doesn't sound like an option for you.
I just did a quick Google search for "virgin superhub 2ac wifi issues raspberry pi" and looks like others are having issues with that router as well for some reason: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=154224
You may want to see if there is anywhere else you can take the Pi to test the wifi. I didn't really see an answer in that thread on how to get it working so it could be an issue Like I have.
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Maybe I'll have to just try and see if I can set it all up using a wired connection somehow then when wifi dies I'll just have to put up with it. I only mainly wanted a network connection for ssh / scraping data.
Just to rub salt in the wound though I was using my expensive corsair keyboard with the pi, well it's just fried it after locking up again. Perhaps this is a power issue I'm facing...
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@jamesyboyjim Look for one of the network extender/repeaters if you want or if you are in a real pinch, you can run an ethernet cable to a Windows laptop and then bridge it's ethernet and wireless connections: http://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-and-manage-network-bridge-connection-windows-10
It's kinda of funky to set up and then you have to put everything back to normal when you are done, but time might be your cheapest option. I have done it a few times before I had the extender thingy laying around for stuff that just needed network every once in a while (that one time an early Blu-Ray played needed a network firmware update).
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Thanks for your help, I'll pinch a long Ethernet cable from work tomorrow, run it temporarily up the stairs and see if I can get a wired network connection. Right now I'm just pretty down about my keyboard.
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Just my two cents here...I think you'll find that wireless works fine in NOOBS / Raspian. However, wireless will work poorly in Retropie. There are some known issues with wifi in Retropie and the wireless driver is "suspect". I solved my wireless issues in Retropie by adding in one of these for 5 bucks.
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@batesman Retropie is a few scripts and optional packages on top of Raspbian, the wifi component is the same.
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@synack it is possible there are some extra drivers with the full Raspbian as retropie is built on Raspbian lite but that's just total conjecture on my part and I have no evidence to back that up. I would assume wifi stuff is handled at the kernel level anyhow
If you read the documentation it will answer 99% of your questions: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/
Also if you want a solution to your problems read this first: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first
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My observation was that using onboard wifi in Raspbian I didn't have packet loss. In RetroPie I did. I don't now that I am using the Tenda adapter. To me that indicates a driver issue.
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@herb_fargus Yeah the hardware initialization and driver definitely lives at the kernel level.
@batesman I don't doubt your experience, but I think that there were other factors at hand as the driver would be the same on both distributions (if they were using the same kernel version). In early-mid 2016, the Raspbian kernel was updated to remove power saving mode which was impacting wifi for several users. If you initially installed RetroPie back in Q1-Q2/2016, and then later installed Raspbian, it's possible that would be the culprit.
But I'll borrow @herb_fargus' comment -- this is conjecture. I'd welcome you to prove this to be untrue. :-)
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Pinched a long network cable from work today and have temporarily run it up the stairs, seems to be working fine over Ethernet. I have an old linksys router with ddwrt installed, I think maybe I'll have to try and turn it into a wireless switch so the pi can run through that. Very annoying but these things are sent to test us I suppose! I think out of curiosity I'll look into taking a backup of my image and try something else, as mentioned above to see if the wifi is just as weird running a different distro.
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@jamesyboyjim That's what I did with my a Linksys E1200 I picked up used for a couple dollars.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Client_Bridged
My Xbox One tends to download updates in the 30-50 Mbit range and sometimes closer to 80 Mbit on a good day. Can't remember what speeds I get with the Pi3 as it basically hits the limitations of usb on the Pi, so I do often end up with kida sporadic file transfers because I'm trying to push data faster than the Pi can write it to the SD card.
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