wifi and keyboard problems, XPS13, ubuntu 14.04

re 1)

Thankfully I do not suffer from that (but I upgraded to newer distro) - check in what mode your router is re wifi when this happens. Did it change to a different channel for example, or did it switch transfer modes (if your router exposes it, lock the channel-width to 20Mhz and try whether that makes a difference)

re 2) 

Unfortunately the repeate delay does not matter/won't help for duplicated keys. (at least it doesn't change things for me) - but make sure you're running the current bios, that did reduce the repeats/did limit them to space for me.

I have the same issue with wifi.

My other 4 devices are not affected so I assume this is Dell XPS 13 9343 Ubuntu 14.04 issue. I cannot even ping router's ip. I have to restart "enable wi-fi" to fix it. Isn't there a fix for that issue?

Thankfully I do not suffer from that (but I upgraded to newer distro) - check in what mode your router is re wifi when this happens. Did it change to a different channel for example, or did it switch transfer modes (if your router exposes it, lock the channel-width to 20Mhz and try whether that makes a difference)

I have an Asus RT-AC68U and never had issues with wireless, even with several different configurations of it. I do keep two separate networks, though. One SSID is for 2.4GHz (with b/g compatibility enabled for my printer), and one SSID for 5GHz (802.11ac only since I have it set to use 80MHz channels).

I think it largely depends on which wireless access point you have. (Frankly many of them are terrible, and I've had problems with all sorts of laptops with some brands.) It also can depend on your RF environment to a certain extent. For example, my wireless coverage shrank when the elementary school across the street from my house changed what APs they used. :-\

So, I *have* had an Ubuntu issue very recently (maybe because I'm using vivid-proposed) where I have to restart Network Manager. But that's an issue with userspace. If you could open a bug report on Launchpad, that would help.

Dear Cloph,

thanks a lot for the feedback!

1) Unfortunately I'm not an expert in router functioning, so I got a bit lost in your instructions. Anyway I not only have this wireless problem at home, where I could a priori adjust my router settings, but also at work with this computer. There, I cannot change the router modes or settings. So I was expecting something like an updated wifi driver, or patch, etc. Is this the first time you hear such a behavior for wifi with xsp13+tubuntu14.04?  By the way, just for completeness, I paste here my output for lshw -C network:

+++++++

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 03
serial: c4:8e:8f:f5:91:7b
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=6.30.223.248 (r487574) ip=192.168.1.8 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abg
resources: irq:19 memory:f7200000-f7207fff memory:f7000000-f71fffff

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have read that sometimes Broadcom cards are not the most satisfying ones with Dell. But I'm not sure this is my actual problem.

2) I tried to update my BIOS to A04, following the instructions of the link above, but for some reason I didn't succeed: the button for "Begin Flash Update" was disable in my case. On the other hand, I can confirm that the repeat delay does not help for the unwanted duplicated keys.

Thank you very much for clarifying these things, mainly the wireless issue, which does not let me work properly.

Best.

That was just meant to try to figure out what the cause of those outages is. limiting to 20Mhz limits chance of interference with other networks and should be more robust.

But of course if you still get "wifi is connected, but cannot even ping the router", then another possibility is that the router is ***, esp. when you have multiple devices hooked up to it (and with the temperatures here now), your router might just take a break. I also experienced that with a D-Link DIR-615 - that effect then is not limited to the broadcom device, but also neither my android devices nor my realtek based card nor mac can do anything. Waiting is the only cure. (or maybe switching to only-g mode that limits overall bandwidth/work the router has to do).

Much better solution in this case is to buy a better router. Only 15€ get you a suitable TP-Link as replacement for a 2,4Ghz-only device like the DIR-615, for around 50€ you can get one that also supports 5Ghz..

To be able to flash bios, the laptop must be hooked up to the power brick. Then it woked fine from a fat-formatted USB-thumbdrive. (the windows flash-program as is copied to the drive)

Thanks a lot.

Now I was perfectly able to update the BIOS, and the problems seem to have disappeared after 2 days of testing.

My problems with wifi continue. It is not completely my router's fault (even if I have a not-great D-Link, with frequent high peaks in the ping time  - over 3000 ms), there are still two laptops at home without the same behaviour (one of them, with linux). I have the same problem with my XPS at work, where the wifi works perfectly fine for the rest of the users. 

Is it possible that the problem disappears after updating my wireless card? do you know how to do that?

thank you again!

Bryanzm,
I had exactly the same issue with D-Link DWR 921 router once I've connect XPS 13 (broadcom wifi) to it. From time to time ping router ip was 30k ms or timeout. Router was working fine for more than year.
Since I switch from Dlink to my ISP modem/router I have no problems so far. Maybe this is specific broadcom+linux+dlink issue.
I should soon have intel card installed so I can update you on that issue.
As of now I hope ubuntu 14.04.3 / 16.04 + intel card will solve all problems and XPS 13 can be called a best developers laptop.

giving this patch is also worth a try - it solved kernel-panics in combination with the broadcom one, and is said to also solve some instability issues:

en.community.dell.com/.../20788219

I've installed Ubuntu 15.04 on my XPS 13. Guidelines here: http://hgdev.co/installing-ubuntu-15-04-on-the-xps-13-9343-2015-a-complete-guide/ 

just wanted to note that i solved the keyboard repeat issue by installing the latest bios update. there are links to that stuff in the first thread on this forum