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[LUG] OT: Raspberry Pi, wireless keyboard, WiFi dongle

 

Hi All,

Basic setup; non-Smart TV aiming to add Smart functions with a Pi and Raspbmc. I have a Raspberry Pi B model, cased with a 4Gb card with Raspbmc loaded. That works perfectly well. What does /not/ work so well is the wireless capability. The router is in my bedroom, ground floor front of the house, on a wardrobe up high. Next door is my bathroom, and next to that is the lounge with the TV in question. First attempt using NFS loading pictures - of any size - off my NAS took minutes which is obviously unacceptable performance. I've used WiFi Analyzer on my Android phone and the signal level in the lounge is healthy, plus I can use my tablet in there with no issues.

The latest advance in diagnosing the issue was the result of a problem - ironically. The wireless keyboard decided not to play with anything.. the Pi, or my desktop in Win 7/XP or in Mint[1]. As a result I plugged a wired USB keyboard into the Pi, and immediately noticed a leap in WiFi performance, a few seconds to load a 3Mb photo for example which is perfect.

It suggests the problem is power to the Pi's USB, and with both wireless keyboard and WiFi dongle it's sucking too much for the WiFi to perform properly. If I use a powered USB hub attached to one of the Pi's USB ports do you think that will address the problem? Alternatively does anyone use the same setup without problem, and if so what power supply do you use?

Kind regards,

Julian

[1] A friend took both the keyboard and dongle to his house to test and they work perfectly there. We're both completely lost as to what the problem was here.

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