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.