Unfortunately there was no solution to this and I ended up returning the laptop. The ax210 Wi-Fi card was not the problem - I tried several other Wi-Fi cards from other laptops (which had great Wi-Fi range) and there was no difference. Support sent me a new Wi-Fi antenna - no difference. I’m only left to assume that the placement of the antenna or the design of the laptop somehow weakens the Wi-Fi signal.
Did support state what the qualifiers were that allowed them to have this conclusion?
I pushed back with… nicely and provided evidence of my other devices getting more than 3x the download speed. They are now sending me a new antenna kit.
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I reboot my PC (not a Framework) every day. I noticed that some days I would have fast wifi and other days slow wifi. Neither the PC or router moved. After investigation I found that sometimes I would connect at 5Ghz (which was fast) and other days at 2.4GHz (which was slow). I could see no reason for this. Fortunately Windows has an option to specify a preference. I made 5Ghz my preferred wifi connection and since then it has been fast every day.
Hugh
I’ve been going back and forth with Framework support for over three weeks to try and resolve this. First they sent me a replacement antenna, which did not solve the problem. Then they sent me a new Intel AX210 Wi-Fi adapter which also did not speed up the download speeds.
At this point, I do believe this to be a design flaw with the Framework 13. The antenna placement inside the laptop is not optimal. When I stand directly below my WAP with the latop, I can get full download speed from the wireless network, but if I move even just a few feet away, the speed drops to less than half the upload speed.
I can’t really fault Framework support. They have been very responsive throughout the troubleshooting process, and they replaced two components at no cost to me. Hopefully they can improve the antenna in future because this is a significant problem.
I also keep having very poor WiFi perferomance. It is not a speed limit, since on above 2.5 Gbps networks I can get above 1 Gbps results in speed tests; however, there’s a serious problem with range and connection stability. For example, I have 2.5 Gbps conenction (of which only 1 is available per connection). If I’m RIGHT next to the modem, I get 600 Mbps. If I’m 1 meter away, I get 300. I go into the next room (still less than 3 meters away) and the speed becomes 150/200. In the same location, my Pixel 6 gets 950 Mbps down and my Huaweii Matepad 11.5 gets 700 Mbps down. At uni, I am the only one with connection stability issues. In the old apartment, connection speed was 150 Mbps but I only ever got 75 on my FW. Even in local network transfers the speed was that, despite being connected to my desktop’s hotspot which supports up to 3.6 Gbps. In my parent’s apartment, I also got a 1 Gbps connection and there, too, I was limited to 100/300 Mbps download speed depending on how far away I was from the router.
Right now I’m using my phone as an antenna for the wifi, as with the laptop I’m getting unacceptable performance but while connected by wire to the phone (itself connected to uni’s network) it’s fine.
Uploads however are never a problem. At home I will get 150 down and 700 up.
It’s been an issue sicne day one, but I started off having windows 11 which tended to overwrite the “custom” drivers with newer “inappropriate” ones, so after checking the antennae and the WiFi modules proper installation, I assumed it was windows’ fault.
I have been on Linux since may, first Ubuntu 22.04 LTS then 24.04 LTS, with some fedora in between. Updated everything. The problem perists across all configurations. At this point my belief is that since it’s basically placed inside a metal box, signal reception can’t be great. This would also explain why upload speed seems to be normal, since that is mostly bottlenecked by the receiving antenna.
FW 13 1340P
If you are trying to troubleshoot wireless connectivity issues, two tools every Linux user should know are wavemon and iperf3.
Wavemon will give you a detailed readout of what the active connection physical properties are, actual phy rate, disconnect/ reconnect, etc.
Iperf3 between a server and client on your LAN is much more informative than speed tests that go out to the general Internet. Too many variables affecting latency and throughput out there to really troubleshoot well the “last mile” to your wireless device.
I have no idea if there are Winblows equivalents, or of they are runnable on cygwin or similar. I invite you to look for similar caliber tools if you are stuck on that OS.
That all being said, my own investigations in using the FW supplied antenna brought up some interesting points:
- The FW antenna isn’t exactly amazing even in free air outside of the laptop case
- As a client STA, the FW antenna is highly sensitive to orientation towards the AP. Even ~10 degrees in alignment change can nearly double throughput, especially at higher phy RX/TX rates
- As an AP, the FW antenna loses ability to serve clients much more rapidly than a reference 2dbi omni stub style antenna
So the lid doesn’t help, but the FW antenna design itself definitely deserves some of the blame here.
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I am currently using my tablet as a repeater. Said tablet is basically resting below my right hand as I’m typing this.
Connecting to Uni’s wifi (I am literally within line of sight of the repeater, and yesterday I was seated directly below it and still had connection issues) .
Whenever I download games on steam, my laptop maxes out at 300 Mbps even while transferring from local network.
When I download stuff from GDrive, GitHub or the likes, it’s the same.
I even have an ancient laptop with a 6300U, and when the bottleneck isn’t the extremely poor CPU of that thing, it’s faster than my FW13.
It is usable, but clearly a problem exists.
PS Just as I was writing this, my SSH connection to my home pc dropped (the home pc is using an ethernet 40 Gbps cable through a 1 Gbps port using fiber connection) and I had to reconnect.
And it gets worse over time it seems, I did not move from the spot I was in.
I am having the same problem. I replaced the antenna with a brand new one and also bought the Intel AX210 and put that in (both with the new and old antennas) and there was no difference whatsoever.
Moving away 20-30 ft from the router while still maintaining line of sight with it with no obstruction will result in 50-30% reduction of my download speed.
Whereas doing the same thing with other devices shows no difference in the download speed.
Yeah when in less than optimal conditions it’s borderline unusable. At my parents’ house the router is REALLY poorly placed, and every device has issues because of it but they remain operational. The laptop does not. I am currently in a library with very poorly engineered network layout, and I need to use my phone (which sits right next to the laptop) as a signal amplifier or it will literally be 30 times slower. Problem with this is that I had to step out for calls and thus the network disconnected, and every time it takes 2 to 10 minutes to be operational again since all of the SSH tunnels hate when one switches network. Not to mention I’m using my phone’s battery more than necessary.
At this point I would love to be able to get a plastic top cover since I’m convinced that having a full metal very high quality shell makes the laptop a very effective Faraday cage. To properly test this I would need to dismantle the screen and test the antennae while “free floating” and while properly mounted, but I’m not going to do that.
Maybe the FW antennas are better in one direction than another.
Maybe try various orientations of the laptop to see if any are better.
That is not the issue. I spent weeks going back and forth with support (not their fault at all, they did everything they could do), trying to solve this issue. The problem is either the motherboard of the laptop or the case/antenna position within the case. Under no circumstances did it EVER work well when more than 20 feet or so from the router, god forbid in another room in the house.
I’ve tried several different WiFi cards, all with the same result. All of the WiFi cards worked perfectly in other laptops. All of them had the same diminished WiFi signal when used in the Framework. Without the antenna connectors plugged in (or plugged in reverse), there is no WiFi signal at all, which tells me that there isn’t anything broken.
Edit: Just re-read your comment and I know you’re just trying to help and offer a clue on what could actually BE the issue (regardless of whether there’s a solution to it).
Could you try 2.4g? That is where the problem really lies.