Killer Wireless-AC 1550 Review

Here's the link to Killer Control Center Version: 1.5.1859 released today straight from Killer Networking

https://www.killernetworking.com/driver-downloads/item/killer-control-center-x64

 

Are the overall speed improvements holding up with this new driver? Is anyone still seeing fluctuating Wi-Fi speeds where everything was stable with a previous adapter, such as a 1535?

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

I used the driver on Intel 9260 but it's the same hardware so there shouldn't be any difference and I can confirm that 1.7 Gbps is stable with this driver.

Partially off-topic - you have a Linksys WRT32X - do you have any inside knowledge as to a fix coming for 160Mhz channels issue? As you must have noticed download speed with WRT32X/WRT3200ACM is atrocious (2MB/s) while upload works fine. It seems to be a Marvell driver issue not Intel/Killer one but the router is Killer branded so I assume you guys are interested in that being fixed. Anything you can share about this?

 

I already reached out to Killer on this and was told that Linksys is working on a updated firmware that will fix the issue. I was told 3 weeks last week.

 

It doesn't seem like there's too much information on getting the Killer 1550 to work at 160mhz with the Netgear R9000 Nighthawk X10 Router. Do we need to wait for a firmware update? @Phoenix any luck with getting the 160mhz to work on your R9000 router? It seems the two main suggestions are to tick the "Enable HT160" box in the router advanced wireless settings, and use the lower channels on 5ghz. I've tried both of these without success.

It seems like from the netgear forum suggest that the 160mhz works with the R7800 router but not the R9000. Does anyone have more information?

So far I've been happy with the performance boost at 80mhz with my new 1550 card. I use wifi to transfer files between my computer and my NAS a lot. Previously with my Intel 8260 card I was getting about 45MBs read and write. With the 1550 I get about 70MBs. I'm less than 15ft away from my wire with 1 wall inbetween.

 

Right now in terms of MU-MIMO, HT160 and overall 5Ghz performance and range the R7800 is the best consumer unit out in the wild. The R9000 uses the same excellent Qualcomm QCA9984 chipset but yet has slightly less performance and that “Active Antenna” stuff they advertise on the R9000 is snake oil as performance shows and you end up with non replaceable anntennas. The only thing R9000 has over the R7800 is two extra CPU cores and link aggregation, even VPN is single threaded so for a standard user it doesn’t make much sense.

It doesn’t look like even Netgear knows what’s going on with the HT160 on the R9000, one Netgear forum member Schumaku asked his engineer contact there and was told the 9260ac is a HT160 2x2 card while the router only supports HT160 at 4x4. That explanation makes absolutely no sense as number of antennas on a client has nothing to do with HT160 support. In addition the QCA9984 actually does go into a 2x2 mode when dealing with HT160. It will do HT160 with 2 clients concurrently at 1x1 with MU enabled and 1 2x2 client at a time without MU. So that engineer was clearly wrong either way as whoever that engineer contact was, doesn’t seem to know how the chipset works and contradicted Qualcomm’s own slides about the QCA9984. Another Netgear forum member Case850 however believes it might be an issue with interfacing the Amazon Annapurna Labs CPU with the Qualcomm WiFi chipset, the R7800 however is a full Qualcomm product unlike the R9000 so maybe he is right about that.

@Phoenix you won’t see 60Ghz because you need an Intel 17265/18260/18265 or another 60Ghz supporting client chip, plus additional antennas for 60Ghz.

@WhatsThePoint the XR500 is essentially an R7800 I tested the firmware for Netgear on an R7800 that they gave. Seems like reviews are showing slightly reduced 5Ghz performance but gains in 2.4Ghz so maybe the antenna or slight board layout change is causing the slight differences. Even firmware is pretty much stock R7800 with NetDuma software/UI on top of it as an overlay. Voxel a firmware dev at SNB forums looked through the XR500 firmware and came to the same conclusion.

Below I attached an image of how the QCA9984 functions in SU, MU and HT160, that slide is directly from a Qualcomm presentation. Also note that the QCA9984 won’t necessarily use MU-MiMO just because it’s enabled, it will balance cost/benefit of doing it depending on the situation as it’s computationally intensive.

 

This is what I have but I still don't see the 60GHz Network:

 

Doesn't seem quite right that the top of the line Netgear router isn't at least equal to an older cheaper model R7800.

I wonder how the new XR500 stacks up?Anyone have an XR500 and Killer 1550 paired up?

I know the 802.11ad is just about useless with no Wi-Fi card support but why's the X!0 having trouble with well established 802.11ac with HT160 setting reaching the theoretical 1.7ghz data rate?

If I had laid out all that money for an X10 I'd not be a happy camper.

I've had only Netgear routers since I purchased a WNDR3700 some 9years ago.Before that I had a few D-Links and Linksys

 

Thank you for the comprehensive comparison and the details on the QCA9984 capabilities! I know what to expect (in theory) now from my router.

I do have the link aggregation set up with my NAS but almost never use its capabilities as I'm the only user and use it one device at a time. It's my understanding that it does not make the connection into 2gbit but helps when you have two devices using the NAS at the same time? Quick question. I have 4 LAN ports connected to my NAS, two of which is link aggregated. If I want another device using the NAS is it better to use both on link aggregation or just use the second device through one of the other 2 ports?

I hope this doesn't mean that the R9000 is incapable of 160mhz. I'm hoping that it is fixable with a firmware update.

Yes, my previous wifi adapter was the Intel 18260 thinking that the 60Ghz would work on it, but I didn't have the additional antenna so couldn't use the 60Ghz capabilities on my R9000.

 

I can confirm that we are expecting a firmware update from Linksys in a few weeks that will resolve this issue. Note the emphasis on expecting. We are just as dependent on Linksys as the rest of you on this matter.

There is a weird hack that you can use on the X10. I'm hesitant to share it, as it is very much a use at your own risk, not supported by Netgear or Killer, this may break your router, and we are not responsible for any damage that you cause if you do this situation. But basically, download firmware version 1.0.1.36 (or possibly later, but we know you can do it with this version). Using Chrome, access the router's UI, go to the Advanced Tab, click Setup then Wireless Setup, then right-click just to the right of the Region Dropdown box and click Inspect. Highlight the Dropdown and find the value “disabled=’disabled’” and delete it. The Dropdown box should now be enabled. Change it to "Europe." Now go to the Wireless Network settings, and put the router on Channel 48 and click Apply. Then go to Advanced Setup > Wireless Settings and make sure HT160 is checked, and then hit Apply if you checked it.
If the settings were applied correctly, you should see in the Information about Wireless Settings (5.0GHz)
Region: Europe
Channel 36+40+44+48(P)+52+56+60+64

Again, use at your own risk, not supported by Netgear or Killer, this may break your router, and we are not responsible for any damage that you cause if you do this.

But we were able to get well over Gigabit Wi-Fi speeds out of an X10 this way.

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

I assume that since channels 52-64 are DFS and the router is supposed to check intermittently for usage by government & other priority agencies there maybe be an issue that may not allow the router to fallback to 80 MHz under those circumstances which would then result in usage in those channels being illegal, just a theory. Probably Netgear doesn’t want to get in trouble by using a workaround. Either that or it’s not staying within leagal power limits at HT160 or could be both.

@Killer_Networking if you have an R7800 can you compare it with your R9000 at HT160 for signal levels with something like inSSIDer 4? Same chipset but certainly there would be slight differences due to board layout and antennas but just looking for any major signal differences due to power limits possibly not being followed on the R9000. I think you can also check the DFS channel check via command line but not sure.

 

Unfortunately, I do not. The only routers in my stable are a WRT32X and a sad an unused ASUS RT-AC3200 that I bought right before I got access to the WRT32X through work, and an RT-N66U that lives in my laptop bag. The information about the R9000 came from our QA lab.

Considering the width of a 160 MHz channel, I'm not sure that using 52-64 is avoidable, but surely DTS can still override that. I wish there was some way to check for certain. Maybe hang out with the router at an airport? That wouldn't look suspicious at all...

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

Iol I was thinking the same or near a military base lol jk. You didn’t know your oversized hotspot was illegal is all, if they come.

I found a 5Ghz spectrum usage map that has DFS channel use mentioned if anyone is interested.

Also just wanted to add that some people seem to have gotten their R9000s exchanged by Netgear for R7800/XR500 due to the HT160 issue. So if any of you really want HT160 you can try that if you are in warranty.

 

I got really excited about the super secret hidden menu, but unfortunately I wasn't granted access to the secret button. Using Chrome, I clicked to the right of the "Region" dropdown menu (North America greyed out) but nothing happened. I then rolled back my firmware from V1.0.3.10 to V1.0.1.36 and logged in with Chrome again and still nothing. What exactly happens when you hit the secret button? Does a menu pop-up that says "Inspect"? Is Inspect a button? Where exactly does it appear?

On a separate note, do I have to have the Killer Control Center software open for the different network traffic to be prioritized? Or is the background service sufficient?

 

My apologies, it should say right-click. It has been edited.

The Killer Control Center needs to be running to prioritize traffic, but can be minimized to the tray, which is where it should be by default.

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

I got HT160 to work! Thanks for the clarification, Anthony. The Wi-Fi status properties reads 1.4-1.7Gbps which is greater than the limits of the wired connection to my NAS. The NAS performance tester 1.7 gives 80MB/s write and 100MB/s read speeds. The tests on my wired connection on my other laptop gives a little over 100MB/s up and down, so the wireless speed to my NAS is close to a wired connection.

a little more detail on the directions that Anthony gives in post #210...
The hack does not work on firmware V1.0.3.10 (you can't enable HT160, the checkbox is greyed out). You have to first update the firmware manually by downloading the V1.0.1.36 img file and uploading it to the router via advanced settings (administration --> firmware update; wired connection recommended). Follow the directions in post #210. Once you right click and hit "inspect" scripts will appear on the right with a line highlighted. Click on the arrow/carrot that's at the beginning of the line. Then right click on the disabled="disabled" line and click on edit attribute. Delete disabled="disabled" and hit enter. Select Europe and channel 48 and hit apply. The region will go back to being "North America" and greyed out but the settings will have been applied. Click on "advanced setup" --> wireless --> check the enable HT160 box at the bottom of the screen and hit apply.

 

i got my 1550 and a 9260. At the moment the 9260 is more stable regarding the transfer rate.
the 9260 fluctuate between 1,1Gbps and 1,7Gbps the 1550 between 866Mbps and 1,7Gbps.
but i think the reason is the beta OS for my router.
at the moment i can only wait till they offer a new beta OS.
i sit 2m (6feet?) away from my router.

 

@JeanLegi It's the same card so it can't be down to the router - if anything it's down to the drivers. The latest driver Phoenix posted here can be installed on Intel 9260 as well (it detects the card properly as it's in the inf file). That driver fixed the fluctuating speeds for me on 9260.

 

thank you @downloads i read the complete threat but miss this post.
but no change with the new driver still fluctuating between 866Mbps and 1,7Gbps but it is more stable with 1,5Gbps and i have now full signal quality.

 

Intel Wireless ProSet 20.50.0.4 WHQL is available for downloading on station-drivers

Being WHQL means it was tested by MS and sourced from one of MS partners.

I have it installed.

EDIT:this driver version is working well.

I've had a data speed of 1,733.30 Mbps for 11 straight minutes before a drop to 1,560 Mbps for several seconds before returning to 1,733.3 Mbps.My low point during 30 minutes monitoring with inSSIDer was a brief 1,400.0 Mbps

 

Cool! Please shoot me an email at [email protected] if you notice any problems with that hack. Although it's not something that I'm giving out in any official capacity, I still want to know if it causes problems.

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but im having a weird issue with the 1550 on my new P775TM1-G. If I close the screen and the laptop goes to sleep and reopen the screen to wake up the laptop wifi doesn't turn on again. Even if I try to manually switch it on in windows settings it doesn't turn on. Disable and enable the device doesn't work in network adapter settings. Restarting windows doesn't work either, only thing that works is a full shut down for 10 secs and switch on again it works, and as soon as I close the screen it happens again.

 

you can try to remove the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" mark.
you need to open the device manager and go to the network adapters and then open with the right mouse button the properties and go there to the power management tab.

 

Do you have the Killer Control Center running in the background?

The 1550 only works on Windows 10 x64 so I assume that's the OS you are using.

You can try updating your driver to the latest Intel WHQL version 20.50.0.4 if you haven't done it already.The driver is available on station-drivers and some other sites.

You can try a complete uninstall of the current Intel wi-fi driver/software you're using with an uninstaller program and then a clean install of the new driver.

 

since a few days i have several disconnects per day with the 1550 card.
any one else of you guys has the same experience?

 

In addition to JeanLegi's suggestion of disabling the check mark for "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power," also make sure your machine is using the latest BIOS available, as well as the latest chipset drivers from the machine manufacturer. What you are describing is an issue where the machine is not powering the adapter when returning from sleep. The BIOS and chipset drivers are responsible for making sure all of your devices are powered on and enumerated.

If that doesn't help, make sure you are using the latest drivers for the 1550, found here - https://www.killernetworking.com/driver-downloads/item/killer-control-center-x64.

If you haven't changed your Wi-Fi drivers, then something else probably changed about your Wi-Fi radio landscape, such as another signal causing interference, or your own access point switching to a different, less optimal channel, if it is on automatic. Updating to the latest BIOS, chipset drivers, and device drivers are all good first steps, as above. If that doesn't resolve it for you, contact us directly at [email protected] so that I can look at your wireless landscape and see if there is anything that might be causing you problems there, or in other settings.

-- Anthony with Killer Networking

 

My laptop uses Prema bios, and I'm pretty sure it's the latest bios available. I'll try the other suggestions.

 

done all of this in the last days anthony.
and i'm sure that the issue for this is the BETA os of my Fritz!Box 7590 if no one else has the same issue.
and i need the 7590 because we have voip over IP from our ISP.
what i can try is to organize one of the routers which some of the users use here Netgear Nighthawk X10 or what ever and configure my router as an modem/telephone system and connect the router to the 7590 (would be a very expensive modem/telephone system).

 

Just got a proper AC router (K3C). 9260 is loving it, plenty of stuff in the way and still full signal strength (25ft, a floor and a wall).

I say this because: Rumors of the 9260 having issues are way overblown.

 

Well, the 9260/1550 did have issues, but the latest round of driver updates seems to have corrected most of them.

 

Oh, it didn't work at all initially, I am using it in a Ryzen PC and there was no support at all there. I am using the 20.30 driver, anyways.

 

Seems like I'm still having issues even with the changes and installing the new beta drivers.

 

I almost want to buy a new Killer 1535. The speeds of the 1550 are good, but i cant stand this wifi being disabled after sleep.

 

Similar issues for a guy with the Killer 1435 (It also is the QCA617A like the 1535) so the issue is probably down to the bios. Probably some sleep state issue, causing it not to initialize the card.
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/...s-after-waking-from-sleep/td-p/5981452/page/2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/71evu1/xps_15_9560_killer_wifi_killing_my_wifi/

I've become less antagonistic to the Qualcomm cards recently after hearing some who had good experiences (Killer1535/1435) but in general I have probably seen 3-4 people with issues on those for every one on a Intel card in the past, at least on factory/stock laptops without people having changed their WiFi cards.

 

Never had issues with the 1525 of 1535,but they were in my P670RG.

 

I will say this, my board's latest bios breaks the 9260, but the second most recent doesn't. Bios can absolutely break wifi cards.

 

From what i know i am using the latest from HIDevolution and Prema.

 

What board are you talking about here?
What proof of this?
How does the card "break"?

 

My MSI GS60 2PL hasn't had bios and firmware updates from MSI in over 3 years.

It now runs W10x64 with all current updates.

It originally had an M.2 type Intel 7260 that I later updated to a 7265 and then to a Killer 1525.

Now it has the Killer 1550 and running WHQL Intel driver 20.50.1.1 without any issues.

If I close the lid it goes into sleep mode and upon opening it connects to the 5 ghz band without issue.

I built a new W10x64 desktop last month based on an MSI Z370 M5 motherboard and with a 1550 in a PCI-E adapter.

This also works without wireless issues using 20.50.1.1 that's was an update from 20.40.0 and 20.30.0

My router is a Netgear R7800 running Voxel's latest firmware.

EDIT:now running Intel WHQL Wireless ProSet 20.50.1.1

 

I am on a Taichi X370, it has known issues with intel wifi nics using the 4.6 bios. BSODs, device not being detected. Rollback resolves issue.

 

Thought you were referring to a MSIbook. Sorry.

 

Intel ProSet WHQL Version 20.50.1.1 is available for downloading on station-drivers

 

20.50.1.1 drivers are out, not sure what changed from 20.50.0.4G. Last few changelogs have been the exact same.

 

I'm waiting for updated review on @Phoenix new system with 1550 WLAN/BT.

 

@kqmaverick @Killer_Networking
A new firmware for WRT32X is available and it fixes the issue with Intel 9260/Killer 1550, both according to change-log and my tests.
In not-so-clean wireless environment (strong signal on one of the lower 80MHz channels I use to create 160MHz) I ended up transferring at 88,9MB/s down and 83,4MB/s up from and to my NAS respectively via FTP.
Wi-Fi driver used: 20.50.1.1

Link to firmware: https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=226203

EDIT: Be advised - Linksys seem to have enabled third radio that WRT3200ACM and WRT32X have for DFS scanning. As a result the router is now DFS complainant which makes it worse - for one thing 5GHz radio is not available at all for a while after boot as the scanning process is active. Secondly it discovers weather radars that do not exist at random times (probably some non Wi-Fi 5GHz devices). As a result it switches Wi-Fi channel to any channel it deems proper regardless of what you have chosen in GUI. In my case one of my notebooks and a smartphone have been randomly disconnected from 5GHz network because the router switched to the channel outside of those officially available in my region.

EDIT 2: I disconnected the cable for the third radio to disable DFS which didn't work since without DFS, 5GHz radio would not work at all. So I flashed an older firmware back - router kept the settings so now I have both working Intel 9260 with A-MSDU max frame size capped at 7.9K which was the fix for slow 9260/1550 download and no working DFS (and a disconnected third radio)
Net result - ftp download speed from NAS clocked at 93 MB/s average over 4GB test file.

 

downloads that's terrific!
I was able to get a high of 101 MB/s the 1st time I did a W10x64 ISO transfer from a Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash drive attached to a Netgear R7800 to a MSI GS60 notebook's desktop but have not been able to repeat it.The best I can achieve now is in the 80 MB/s to 90 MB/s range.

I've also been using 20.50.1.1 since I posted about it's availability.

On my R7800 router I have Voxel's latest firmware release.

 

I'm at the library right now and library WiFi used to work pretty well and consistently on my Intel 18260. After I switched to the Killer 1550 initially the connection worked well the first couple times, but the last couple of times I've been here it would connect to the open network but with "No Internet Connection" and if I on-mouse-over the WiFi systray icon it keeps saying "identifying..." and then after a bit it disconnects and tries reconnecting. I'm currently connected via my phone's hotspot AP.

Is this a range issue? Any idea how I can fix this? A couple of things that may have contributed to this:
1. I upgraded to v20.50.1.1 - So I uninstalled it from windows and uninstalled Intel Proset and reinstalled v20.50.0.4 and it did not help.
2. I subscribed to a Express VPN service and installed their software. So I uninstalled their software and deleted the network adapter or whatever in windows "network connections" and this did not help.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Have you tried running Network Tropubleshoot packs?
Try a different DNS server. Even I get No Internet, Secured Message written most of the time. Simply disconnecting and reconnecting solved the issue for me on 1535.

 

Does anyone know if Intel 9260/Killer 1550 support 80+80 MHz channels or just one continuous 160MHz? Nothing about that in the specs and FCC test documents are way too long to look through.

 

Not sure I was hoping it was just a bug with the 80+80 split bonding so I mentioned that to an Intel rep on their forums at least with the R7800 it requires the lower contiguous spectrum. He said they would look into it. Can you try with your WRT? Since it uses a different (Marvell) chipset, if results are the same then it may be more a limitation with the 9260ac.

Edit: You are right I will look into the FCC docs and get back to you totally forgot about that.

Edit 2: Looks like testing for 160Mhz was done in UNII 2A and 2C so only lower channels. No mention of 80+80 testing in this FCC document:
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=3776682
Looks like 160 MHz was tested with CH144 though. Checked others documents as well can’t find 80+80 tests unless I missed something. Maybe they will file for an updated FCC permission like many router companies do, if the hardware truly is capable.