AMD Gang, any of you are planning to swap out the Mediatek WiFi?

Framework Laptop 13
27

Not really fair, the ath9k ones (especially the ones with 5ghz radios) could also have transmitted in bands the really should not but somehow the world didn’t end. But it is their justification, at least the came down from their initial knee-jerk reaction where they told everyone to lock stuff way down which allmost killed open-wrt and co.

And if you look at wifi 7 with punctured channels and stuff like that you can probably see how it keeps getting more complicated but also lets you use more of the spectrum. It used to be the regulatory domain said you can use those channels and absolutely mustn’t use these, no we you can use those, and those if you check nothing else is on there and that one if you make sure you don’t transmit on Sunday at 7:15 or when the moon is in retrograde.

28

I own a Batch 4 AMD FW13. Just received a BE200 in the mail today. Laptop would not boot/post with it installed. Just got the power ight illuminated but no other signs of life.

As soon as I put back the original mediatek card, it worked right away. Seems us AMD users will have a longer wait for internal WiFi 7.

29

Yeah had the same issue when I tried it yesterday, grabbed the ax210 out of my thinkpad instead for now XD.

Sounds like this is a pretty common issue with the be200 for now, it is quite new at this point.

1 Like
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Same error here, the led are blinking: BBGGBGGG (11001000)

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I’m doing a wait and see. I plan to continue using it for now with no real plans to swap it out. But if I run into issues or it seems based on community feedback I am likely to run into issues then I will probably swap it out since wifi cards are pretty cheap compared to other parts.

So far though no complaints. The missing wifi during setup wasn’t much of an issue for me because I am multiple USB Ethernet adapters so I just used that to get me going.

32

Anyone on Linux, especially Fedora: There seems to be an issue with the Mediatek adapter/driver in the latest updates-testing kernel:

I’d be especially curious if anyone who’s swapped (either a non-mediatek card into an AMD machine, or a mediatek card into an Intel machine) and is inclined to test that kernel could take it for a spin.

2 Likes
33

Has anyone experienced problems using the AX210 with Arch linux in the AMD version? My system won’t correctly load the modules on boot, but has no problems at all when reloading after boot:

[root]# lsmod | grep iwl
iwlwifi               569344  0
cfg80211             1339392  1 iwlwifi
[root]# rmmod iwlwifi; modprobe iwlwifi
[root]# lsmod | grep iwl
iwlmvm                696320  0
mac80211             1572864  1 iwlmvm
iwlwifi               569344  1 iwlmvm
cfg80211             1339392  3 iwlmvm,iwlwifi,mac80211
rfkill                 40960  8 iwlmvm,bluetooth,cfg80211

The iwlmvm just seems to miss directly after boot, no obvious errors in my logs. I have seen this now with some kernels in the 6.6 series.

Edit: Same behaviour for 6.1.66-1-lts. Loading iwlmvm after boot gets it to work, removing iwlwifi is not needed.

34

I do NOT have refusal to suspend with;

11th Gen i5
MT7921K ngff card
Arch kernel 6.6.4
Linux-firmware 20231110
Wpa_supplicant 2:2.10-8

But 6.6.5 is definitely failing to suspend, and seems to completely block the kernel. Nifty.

35

So, i actually did swap the Mediatek card with an AX210, it improved the wifi reception in my home office quite a bit. But, there is still the possibility that there was something going on that i wasn’t able to fix myself, but throwing 17 euros on the problem seem to make it go away

edit: but, as the wifi is now better I notice that the Bluetooth is less receptive, it works, but when scanning a lot less stuff shows up that was there previously (neighbors smart home stuff)

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36

I can confirm what @BrunoDeVries says. I also changed mine for an AX210 and the performance, especially on 5GHz has vastly improved.
So far i can’t tell if Bluetooth is worse now. It still does what i expect of it, thus counting the changeover as a win.

37

I have an AX210 coming on Friday, and I’ll do some statistically embarrassing signal quality and wattage testing when it arrives.

38

I kept my AX210 from the 11th gen setup, and it’s been working fine, personally.

39

I’m in this boat also….no issues with MediaTek. Power draw and consumption is reasonable across the board when on battery so I’m not sure how/where/why others are having issues. I also can plug in Ethernet if I need a bigger boost.

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40

@SCdF How’s the new AX210 compared to the original WiFi card?? Any battery or signal improvements?

Interested in doing the same swap.

41

I’ve just swapped stock Mediatek with QCNFA765, for now it seems to be more stable when signal is weak. I’ll have more data in a few days.

42

I don’t have a lot of issues with my Mediatek card as of yet, i.e. no random disconnects, no loss of signal after sleep mode, etc.

However, I’ve noticed that the internet speeds on my Framework are a little bit slower than on my MacBook or iPhone, it usually is around 370 MB/s on the Framework vs 500+ MB/s on the other two devices. Minor issue but still, I wonder if the AX210 would perform better.

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43

Today I upgraded my home wifi with a new WiFi6 AP, an ubiquity U6+.
Wired connection is HTTH 1Gb/300Mb.
Mediatek driver is 3.3.0.908 dated 27/11/2023

Here are the speeds recorded in the same location
Samsung S22ultra: 920/280
Dell xps13 7390 Killer 1465 Win11: 465/280
Framework 13 mediatek Win11: 96/175

I’m presently looking on Amazon for a Killer card, had enough of this mediatek garbage

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44

Ordered without Mediatek as I came from the 11th gen. AX201 still going strong in Fedora.

45

The AX201 is incompatible with AMD processors as it requires CNVIo2. Perhaps you mean AX210?

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46

Perhaps I do