Ttgjyuk

I have a HP 14-AN001NA laptop. It came with Windows 10 installed on which the Wi-Fi worked fine anywhere in the house.

However I removed Windows 10 and installed Ubuntu 16.04 instead and since I have had terrible Wi-Fi anywhere aside from about three foot away from the router. I don't know if it's relevant but my Wi-Fi is not called wlan0 but wlo1 for some reason (I didn't change it).

When running lspci -knn | grep Net -A3 I get the following output:

05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:b723]
DeviceName: 
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [103c:81c1]
Kernel driver in use: rtl8723be
Kernel modules: wl, rtl8723be

Run in a terminal

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

and reboot.

The ant_sel parameter enables one of the two antenna connectors of your RTL8723be adapter. Your laptop has only one antenna because the vendor is too greedy to install two. The Linux drivers can't detect which antenna connector is in use. So we have to guess it.

In Windows either the vendor sets it up somewhere on a pre-installed system, or the Windows proprietary drivers can detect it.

If ant_sel=1 does not help, use ant_sel=2. This setting tells which antenna is in use 1 or 2.

What fixed my laptop HP Pavilion with Ubuntu 16.04 is https://github.com/navilg/rtl8723be.

I had this issue with 14.04. I had a script that fixed it but when I upgraded OS this script didn't work any more.

I've not been able to use my laptop with Ubuntu 16.04 for about 4 months. This script fixed the issue completely.

Note: I haven't tested it on Ubuntu 16.04, but it works fine on Ubuntu 18.04.

It's a problem with the drivers of Realtek RTL8723BE controller.
Do this:

1. 
   

   Get the new wifi drivers from github:

   
   
   

   git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new/
   

   
   


2. 
   

   Go into the directory:

   
   
   

   cd rtlwifi_new
   

   
   


3. 
   

   Build it:

   
   
   

   make
   

   
   


4. 
   

   Install:

   
   
   

   sudo make install
   

   
   
   

   Now the new drivers are installed. To see what is the correct antenna configuration for your laptop, do this:

   
   


5. 
   

   Unload the existing module:

   
   
   

   sudo modprobe -r rtl8723be
   

   
   


6. 
   

   Load the new module with antenna configuration:

   
   
   

   sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=1
   

   
   


7. 
   

   Check the wifi signals using:

   
   
   

   iwlist scan | egrep -i 'ssid|quality'
   

   
   
   

   Next repeat steps 5-7 with ant_sel=2 in step 6.

   
   


8. 
   

   Whichever configuration gives the better signal quality, make it the default by using:

   
   
   

   echo "options rtl8723be ant_sel=N" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723be.conf
   

   
   
   

   ---> Replace N with 1 or 2.

   
   

Note: After each kernel update, you need to rebuild the modules.

The solution provided by pilot6 worked perfectly for me.
I had done a fresh install of ubuntu 14.04 from usb on my HP Notebook hp 15ay024TU.

Follow below steps available on hp site:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Wireless-and-Networking/Realtek-8723DE-wifi-module-amp-Bluetooth-Linux-driver/td-p/6477307

$ git clone -b extended --single-branch https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git
unofficial
$ cd rtlwifi_new

$ make 
$ sudo make install
$ sudo modprobe -v rtl8723de ant_sel=2