SER 5800H Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6E

mike5335

This is just a heads up on replacing the Wi-Fi 6 card (AX200 NGW) with a Wi-Fi 6E card (AX210 NGW) from SYONCON via Amazon.  I wanted to do that upgrade because I do have a router that supports 6E.  


I am no expert on replacing these cards, I've added or upgraded three I believe.  The little leads are always a challenge for me to attach/re-attach properly.  I think the key is generally to line the attachment points perfectly to assure they mesh properly.

My SER 5800H had some sort of adhesive over the connectors to the original AX200 NGW card.  Took a bit of a twist/pull to release the connectors.  I cleaned the leads of the "glue" after I detached them.  I'm not sure whether residual of that adhesive made them more problematic to attach to the new card but it took about 10 minutes of patient (?) trying to get them squared away.  

After restarting the machine, while Wi-Fi did work, I had to follow the instructions included with the card to download from the Intel site the updated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers.  Otherwise, the card did not "see" my 6 Ghz Wi-Fi signal from my router.  After that, all was good.

I don't have any speed info to report yet.

Support-03

Hello there,

Thanks for your sharing your experience.
Could you please also offer more updates about the speeds with the new card?

mike5335

I haven't reported the results here since I haven't been happy with them.  I've gone through the following steps in an attempt to get optimal speeds from the 6E upgrade.  1) Talked service at the vendor of my router (Linksys) who helped me upgrade the firmware in my router.  Not much help beyond that.  2) Removed/reinstalled the drivers for both my 6E cards.  Drivers and software.  Didn't physically remove and reinstall the cards, I'm very reluctant to do that because of the difficult connections. 3) Turned off IPv6 on my network (the cards and the router). 4) experimented with different 6E channels with no change, reset to auto on the router.  4) Rebooted the router/PC's.

I'm using OpenSpeedtest Server to measure throughput between the two 6E machines, both running Win 11 Pro.  .  The link speeds are 2402/2402 Mbps when they are close to the router and 1700/1700 when the machines are about 25 feet apart through two walls.  

Speed results 25 feet  apart 690 Mpbs down 680 Mpbs up.  With 2 feet of each other and the router:790 Mbps down Mpbs 840 up

The close in results puzzle me, I expected that they would be considerably faster.  Not at the theoretical limit but above what I'm seeing.  I live in a suburban area.  I would be shocked if anyone adjacent to me had even one other 6E device so I think interference is probably not the issue.  But I admit to not being a technical guru.  I'll certainly consider any suggestions including returning and replacing my router.

mike5335

I've learned a bit researching this issue.  The cards I'm using are 2 x 2 MIMO cards.  That means they can transmit at a top speed of 867Mbits/second.  4 x 4 MIMO devices can reach 1.7 Gbits/second.  That would take FOUR antennas. My PC's and the cards only have connections for 2.  Research says there are some 4 x 4 devices but none that would lend themselves to installation in our mini-PC's.  So, I believe, the speeds I'm seeing are appropriate for the 6E cards I'm using,.  My router is a 4 x 4 device...the lone such device I have.  

fxnoob

AX200 has similar speeds on 2x2, already tested. Is not worth to change myself, because I use it on ethernet cable. 700 on wifi is enough for most tasks, even torrents and streaming and heavy download. On ethernet I hit 950+ and wifi around 700 mbps. Also 5ghz band doesn't have interferences so all is fine. My PC goes on backup connection on wifi when main connection is down, that is on 2.4GHz and 4G, so doesn't matter.

frisbeebeyond

Already tried, AX200 provides identical 2x2 speeds. Since I use ethernet, it's not worth changing. 700 on wifi can handle torrents, streaming, and large downloads. WiFi was 700 mbps and ethernet 950+. It's fine because 5ghz band doesn't have interferences. It doesn't matter that my PC uses 2.4GHz and 4G wifi backup when the main connection is down.