M.2/NGFF wireless cards in Precision M4X00, M6X00 (my experience with M6700)

Yes, I am Connected at 5 GHz and the Router teils me, That I am connected with 390 Mbps. The Router has an integrated Iperf Server. When I Start an iperf Client on the M6800, I See the 250 Mbps and it doesn‘t matter if I Use 1 or 2 Client Sessions in parallel. The summ is the Same. Any hint where the bottleneck Could be? I will get another Router to test against in a few days.
BTW an Apple IPad is connected via 5Ghz with 866 MBps....

 

Alright, so I got the mPCIe version of the AX200 card and I tried it, and I found that the bandwidth is very much limited compared to the M.2 NGFF version. I do not think that it is a good implementation. I will be sticking with the NGFF card in the adapter.

 

I ordered my AX200HMW on 2020/01/11 here:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000563637498.html

...and it was delivered here in Germany on 2020/01/27. Thus, it took 16 days to arrive (not bad, because our German customs usually have their good old tradition to withhold products coming China for several weeks).

And that's what I got:


The module, 2 screws and a "genuine" fenvi screwdriver.

And this is what I experienced with this card:

1) The module was recognized directly and BT_21.60.0_64_Win10.exe and WiFi_21.60.2_Driver64_Win10.exe could be installed without any problems.

2) WiFi AC is working and I've seen download rates up to 3,1 MB/s.

Thus, I can't confirm this:

(But I had a similar problem with my 3160HMW which was caused by the "Microsoft" driver, that was delivered with Win10. After installation of the Intel driver V21.10 this problem disappeared and the bandwith was much higher afterwards)

And this comment:

...makes me wonder how much faster the M.2 NGFF version really is (or if it's really faster).

3) It takes very long to establish a WiFi connection between the AX200HMW and my AC router, when Windows starts (but this could be caused by the LQ router, which was delivered by our Provider, even though my 3160HMW doesn't have similar problems).

4) BLUETOOTH IS NOT WORKING

I was able to install the Driver and I can activate/deactivate Bluetooth, but the module doesn't find any other devices and it can't be discovered by other devices.

Was anyone here able to pair/use Bluetooth devices with the AX200HMW module?

For your information:

A) There is certainly no problem with my M6700, because it is still working perfectly with my "old" 3160HMW (WiFi AC with up to 2 MB/s and BT4) and with the DW1504 that was build in.

B) Reinstalling BT_21.60.0_64_Win10.exe and downgrading to V. 21.30 didn't help.

 

The mPCIe card that I got looks just like yours, even with the same screwdriver. When I tried the mPCIe card, the reported speed to the router was in the tens of Mbps, when I normally expect hundreds. I was getting massive lag when just pulling up web sites. LAN transfer was also slow, getting just a few MB/sec when I normally expect 20-30+ MB/sec. I did use the latest Wi-Fi driver from Intel (21.60). The problem went away as soon as I went back to the NGFF card. (Using the same antennas for both.) Maybe there is an issue that affects some but not all of these cards.

I have been able to connect a bluetooth device to the NGFF card but didn't try with the mPCIe one.

 

Possible, but my problem is that my internet connection is too bad to the test the WiFi bandwidth of my AX200HMW.

It has more or less the same download and upload speeds that my HTC U11 has (between 4 and 5 MB/s <=> 40-50 Mbit/s).

If there's a WiFi problem with my AX200HMW I'll certainly never know (and I maybe was wrong, when I said, that I can't confirm Aaron's and fiftikus' WiFi speed problems).

But there is definitely a problem with the AX200's Bluetooth feature. If your searching on google for this, you'll find countless people with this unsolved problem even with the AX200NGW.

Today I spend several hours with my Bluetooth problem, but unfortunately I didn't find any solution for it; neither by installing different driver versions nor by changing system settings (like disabling "fast startup" or switching main & AUX antennas against each other).

Aaron, would you mind testing the Bluetooth functionality of your AX200HMW?

..or anybody else?

If somebody else would confirm, that there's no chance to get Bluetooth working with the AX200HMW, I would at least have the possibility to get my money back.

And what's even more important: I wouldn't waste anymore time with this module.

 

With the NGFF card I had to do basically nothing to get Bluetooth to work. I installed the latest driver, paired a device, and... done. If it doesn't work like that with the AX200HMW then I would say that it's broke and not worth fighting to fix.

This card is looking like a dud. Shame because it would be great to have a Wi-Fi 6 / Bluetooth 5 card in mPCIe form. I'm keeping an eye on SparkLAN who makes all sorts of interesting cards... They don't have any Wi-Fi 6 / 802.11ax cards out yet.

 

Little by little this is getting comfirmed by others on Aliexpress.

Look at the comments here:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000563637498.html

Somebody from Canada wrote there:

"It works great on a Dell m6800 Precision Laptop operating with Ubuntu 19.04 O/S. However, I cannot get the Bluetooth to work which is... one of the primary reasons I bought this."

Someone else from Russia wrote (in Russian):

"WiFi works fine. And Bluetooth did not work. The Bluetooth icon is and the search for devices does not find anything. Acer Aspire 5750G. Drivers put and automatically and rocked from the Intel site. can who tell you what to do?"

But there has been a Dell M4800 owner who wrote this (even if it's hard to believe):

"Very fast shipping. works perfect on Dell Precision M4800, bluetooth 5.0 and wifi band works fine."

Who knows? Maybe there are really some AX200HMW Cards that work and maybe there are even many AX200NGW modules that don't work. Possibly you have been lucky with your NGFF Card.

There are so many people that have Bluetooth issues with the AX200 that it could be an explanation for this:

Eventually they are smart enough to wait for the AX200 successor.​

 

I think it's more likely that they will put out a card with a different vendor's Wi-Fi 6 card on it. (Qualcomm Atheros, Broadcom, or Realtek.) I've generally had the best luck with Broadcom out of the bunch, so I would try one of those if it popped up.

 

Bluetooth not working seems to be a common thing given these are likely ES cards