802.11n USB wifi adapter (LM Technologies LM816-0648-3 Realtek 00E04C0001) crashes system

I have a desktop running Ubuntu Studio 22.04.1 LTS with kernel 6.2.0-1018-lowlatency, with an *LM Technologies* LM816-0648-3 Realtek 00E04C0001 802.11n NIC USB wifi adapter. *Wifi use locks the system* (display, mouse, keyboard unresponsive). By default the r8188eu driver was loaded (via dmesg), but I see the same behavior with the rtl8188fu driver. *How do I get a stable wifi connection on this device, while ensuring the machine does not crash?* -------- #### Attempted resolution *It's not a [driver conflict](https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2418510):* On my system lsmod showed both r8152 and r8188eu drivers active (r8152 for the motherboard ethernet not needed). I ran rmmod r8152 and added blacklist r8152 to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf; The r8152 driver is no longer active, but wifi use still crashes my system. *It's not a coincidence:* I've since run the machine for a few hours without the adapter attached; It remains responsive. Restoring the adapter and using wifi data again locks the system. *The rtl8188fu driver gives similar behavior:* I tested the rtl8188fu driver following [these installation steps](https://github.com/kelebek333/rtl8188fu) . The behavior is the same. *Related questions etc. that don't resolve this:* Many [questions](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1292580/most-recent-update-of-20-04-knocked-out-realtek-wifi-drivers-how-to-restore/1292624) deal with adapters [not working](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/252210/134513) , rather than locking the system. Few mention this device; Many concern support for internal/onboard wifi chipsets, but it's hard to determine which apply to this USB wifi device in June of 2024. [This question](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/532943/connecting-the-wifi-dongle-is-freezing-the-linux-system) has the same symptoms but I don't understand [the answer](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/552562/134513) ; [This unanswered question](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1490312/random-kernel-panic-on-ubuntu-22-04-3-raspberry-pi-2b) reports a kernel panic on an rπ with the same USB adapter, unclear if related; [This open issue on the rtl8188eu driver github](https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8188eu/issues/312) seems similar but has no follow-up.