How to make WiFi signal stronger on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Realtek RTL8723BE?

Question

I have Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installed on my HP Laptop. In Ubuntu the WiFi signal reception is very weak while it is very good in Windows 10.

I have Realtek 8723be Wireless Driver.

I have to use the following code in the terminal window of Ubuntu every time I turn on Ubuntu to make WiFi signal stronger:

sudo modprobe -rv rtl8723be
sudo modprobe -v rtl8723be ant_sel=1

Is there any permanent solution to make the WiFi signal reception stronger on my Ubuntu 16.04 LTS OS ?

Solution 1

Run in terminal

sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf <<< "options rtl8723be ant_sel=1"

This will create a config file to make the setting permanent.

Solution 2

In case anyone comes here from google, as I did. It may help to substitute ant_sel=1 to ant_sel=2.

Comments

[rajlego]

You could just add the command you want to run to startup, as shown here.

[Pilot6]

@rajlego This is a wrong solution in this case.

[Rohan Bhatia]

man! that is awesome, you solved my wifi issue

[ankitjaininfo]

You made my day, Abhirup. I spent 40 mins with HP tech support on phone and they have not heard the name Ubuntu, especially in 2017.

[Abhirup Banerjee]

Right now the code I have mentioned is already executed and thus WiFi signal is strong. Should I write your code without restarting Ubuntu?

[Pilot6]

You do not need to restart now. This command does not affect anything directly. It tells the system to start the rtl8723be module with ant_sel=1 parameter on boot. It is exactly what you need. You used to manually restart the module with this parameter.

[Pilot6]

But you CAN reboot to check if the setting works. But I do not see a reason why it should not.

[ankitjaininfo]

Reading more here github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new/issues/88, it appears that this is about selecting the right antenna for the Wifi adapter.

[David Foerster]

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