Wireless internet very slow on XP Pro SP3 using USB WNIC
Posted: 24. Jul 2011, 11:19
Hi, I did a number of searches for threads about this issue but couldn't find any relevant. My apologies if I overlooked something.
Host OS: 64-bit BT5 Kubuntu 10.04, linux kernel 2.6.38
Guest OS: 32-bit Windows XP Pro SP3
VirtualBox version: 4.1 with Extension Pack and Guest Additions
WNIC: Alfa AWUS036h (USB) with Realtek8187 chipset and rt8187.sys driver
I installed a wireless USB card so I could access the interface directly in the Guest. I experimented with NAT and Bridged Networking and couldn't figure out any way to do packet capture using these. It's my understanding the only way to do this is with a USB device. Anyway, the Alfa works great on the Host and on my dual-boot XP installation, but not in the virtual machine. Connectivity seems fine, but download/upload speeds are very low. I tested the speed on multiple occasions using SpeakEasy's bandwidth test and by downloading a known healthy torrent. All tests were done during times of low traffic so regular network variance cannot account for it. On the SpeakEasy test takes a long time to start (perhaps 5 times as long) and then I get about 1 MBPS down, compared to 6 - 8 MBPS on host and dual-boot XP. With the torrent I consistently get 700 - 800 kilobytes / s on host and dual-boot XP and only 100 - 200 kilobytes / s (most of the time closer to 100) on Guest XP.
So I know the driver I am using works fine in native XP, and the driver for Ubuntu works fine also. I am using the same XP driver in the VM guest XP. Yet it is extremely slow. Not just transfer speeds, but also seems to take a long time for pages to respond sometimes and start to load. Ping tests reveal very low latency, however, so I'm not sure what's going on. I thought maybe it's a USB issue but I have USB 2.0 installed and every port on my computer is USB 2.0. And even if I could only get USB 1.1 that should allow 11 MBPS, and I get about a tenth of that.
Anyway I am really at a loss here how to fix this, so I'd really appreciate some help. Here's the output from VBoxManage showvminfo (with some irrelevant stuff left out) if it helps. The bridged connections it shows (eth0 and wlan0) are my two other NICs.
Host OS: 64-bit BT5 Kubuntu 10.04, linux kernel 2.6.38
Guest OS: 32-bit Windows XP Pro SP3
VirtualBox version: 4.1 with Extension Pack and Guest Additions
WNIC: Alfa AWUS036h (USB) with Realtek8187 chipset and rt8187.sys driver
I installed a wireless USB card so I could access the interface directly in the Guest. I experimented with NAT and Bridged Networking and couldn't figure out any way to do packet capture using these. It's my understanding the only way to do this is with a USB device. Anyway, the Alfa works great on the Host and on my dual-boot XP installation, but not in the virtual machine. Connectivity seems fine, but download/upload speeds are very low. I tested the speed on multiple occasions using SpeakEasy's bandwidth test and by downloading a known healthy torrent. All tests were done during times of low traffic so regular network variance cannot account for it. On the SpeakEasy test takes a long time to start (perhaps 5 times as long) and then I get about 1 MBPS down, compared to 6 - 8 MBPS on host and dual-boot XP. With the torrent I consistently get 700 - 800 kilobytes / s on host and dual-boot XP and only 100 - 200 kilobytes / s (most of the time closer to 100) on Guest XP.
So I know the driver I am using works fine in native XP, and the driver for Ubuntu works fine also. I am using the same XP driver in the VM guest XP. Yet it is extremely slow. Not just transfer speeds, but also seems to take a long time for pages to respond sometimes and start to load. Ping tests reveal very low latency, however, so I'm not sure what's going on. I thought maybe it's a USB issue but I have USB 2.0 installed and every port on my computer is USB 2.0. And even if I could only get USB 1.1 that should allow 11 MBPS, and I get about a tenth of that.
Anyway I am really at a loss here how to fix this, so I'd really appreciate some help. Here's the output from VBoxManage showvminfo (with some irrelevant stuff left out) if it helps. The bridged connections it shows (eth0 and wlan0) are my two other NICs.
Code: Select all
Name: XP
Guest OS: Windows XP
UUID: -----------
Config file: /root/VirtualBox VMs/XP/XP.vbox
Snapshot folder: /root/VirtualBox VMs/XP/Snapshots
Log folder: /root/VirtualBox VMs/XP/Logs
Hardware UUID: ------------
Memory size: 512MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 128MB
CPU exec cap: 100%
HPET: off
Chipset: piix3
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 4
Synthetic Cpu: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: on
PAE: off
Time offset: 0 ms
RTC: local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: off
VT-x VPID: on
State: running (since 2011-07-24T08:03:38.809000000)
Monitor count: 2
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
IDE Controller (0, 0): /root/VirtualBox VMs/XP/Snapshots/{--------------}.vdi (UUID: -----------)
IDE Controller (1, 0): /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso (UUID: ------------)
NIC 1: MAC: ---------, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'eth0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: Am79C973, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny
NIC 2: MAC: ---------, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'wlan0', Cable connected: off, Trace: off (file: none), Type: Am79C973, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: ALSA, Controller: AC97)
Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
Video mode: 1920x1080x32
VRDE: disabled
USB: enabled
USB Device Filters:
Index: 0
Active: yes
Name: Manufacturer_Realtek_RTL8187_ RTL8187_Wireless [0100]
VendorId: 0bda
ProductId: 8187
Revision: 0100
Manufacturer: Manufacturer_Realtek_RTL8187_
Product: RTL8187_Wireless
Remote: 0
Serial Number: -----------
Available remote USB devices:
<none>
Currently Attached USB Devices:
UUID: -----------
VendorId: 0x0bda (0BDA)
ProductId: 0x8187 (8187)
Revision: 1.0 (0100)
Manufacturer: Manufacturer_Realtek_RTL8187_
Product: RTL8187_Wireless
SerialNumber: ---------------
Address: sysfs:/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-4//device:/dev/vboxusb/001/008
Shared folders: <none>
VRDE Connection: not active
Clients so far: 0
Guest:
Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB
OS type: WindowsXP
Additions run level: 3
Additions version: 4.1.0 r73009
Guest Facilities:
Facility "VirtualBox Base Driver": active/running (last update: 2011/07/24 08:10:56 UTC)
Facility "VirtualBox System Service": active/running (last update: 2011/07/24 08:11:01 UTC)
Facility "VirtualBox Desktop Integration": active/running (last update: 2011/07/24 08:11:06 UTC)
Facility "Seamless Mode": active/running (last update: 2011/07/24 08:11:06 UTC)
Facility "Graphics Mode": active/running (last update: 2011/07/24 08:11:06 UTC)