interrupts - Usb wireless adapter causing DPC spikes

06
2014-04
  • ElvisFanTCB

    Bought 2 new TP-LINK WN722N USB wirless adapters as they were the highest rated on Newegg and were a great price. Both of them cause abnormally high DPC & Interrupt usage in Process Explorer and perfmon. This appears both on x86 and x64 machines. I'm using the latest drivers from the TP-LINK website and even downloaded the latest driver from the Atheros website for this chipset. No dice in resolving the issue. Removing the adapter ends spikes so it is to blame.

    Is this typical? Should I be concerned? Does anybody here own this adapter and notice similar behavior? I expected better from such a highly rated product.

    Proces Explorer screenshot

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    Related Question

    802.11g USB wireless adapter with Linux AP support
  • bdonlan

    Are there any USB wireless adapters out there that support 802.11g in AP mode under Linux? Binary drivers are a no-go, as I plan to use it with an ARM device. Support for WPA would be very desirable as well.


    • Related Answers
  • moshen

    Try a D-Link device. They have an excellent record of using Atheros chipsets with superb linux compatibility.

    Try looking on Linux-Drivers.org for compatible hardware.

  • Ehtyar

    I have a TP-Link device with an Atheros chipset (which I believe all their devices use). Plug 'n play :)

    Looks like I was wrong on this one (see comments)

  • Denilson Sá

    I'm not sure about non-x86 support, but I could get a ralink PCI card to work in Master Mode very easily (after a lot of previous attempts). I've posted the details in my blog.

    I know that USB ralink cards are more trickier to work in Master Mode, and I don't know the current status for USB cards, but you might check the rt2x00 project forum.

    So, besides prism54, you might also try ralink (rt2x00 driver) devices.

  • Tom Wijsman

    It appears that the Linksys WUSB54G is supported by prism54, which claims to support AP mode, so I'll give that a shot. Moshen pointed me to linux-drivers.org, which pointed me in the right direction.

    Update:

    The WUSB54G has multiple variants, not all of which are supported by prism54. I ended up finding a Netgear WG121, which worked nicely through prism54.