Confirmation: You can upgrade 13th Gen Intel Framework Laptop 13 to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 using the Intel BE200 chip

Framework Laptop 13
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Hi everyone,

I wanted to report that I was successfully able to replace my Framework Laptop 13’s AX210 chip with a BE200 chip. I’m sharing this information because there’s a lot of misinformation floating online:

  1. This completely false viral tweet claiming it wouldn’t work.
  2. This post which casts doubt on support.
  3. Etc.

The card works great. Here are the steps that I followed:

  1. Buy the card (I used AliExpress, your mileage may vary).
  2. Replace the card using the official Framework guide.
  3. Install the official Intel drivers (the Intel BE200 currently doesn’t work out of the box on Windows 11 without the drivers).

And that’s it. Nothing special at all. SpeedTest.net showed good results.

I hope this post helps inform the community regarding the compatibility of Intel BE200 chips with 13th Gen Framework laptops.

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I would not call it entirely false, it definitely doesn’t work on a lot of systems (afaik works on some intel platforms, even some older ones but I have not seen anyone that got it working on any amd platform)

Good to know it works on the 13th gen intel framework though.

It definitely doesn’t on the amd at this point XD

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Has anyone tried it on AMD Framework laptops?

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I did, some others here did too.

Doesn’t even post.

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Thanks for the info! Is there any known way to get Wi-Fi 7 on AMD Mainboards, then?

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Interesting… Well at home I have a 1500Mbps internet connection and my 13th gen Intel Framework laptop using it’s AX210 gets an average of 1400Mbps down using a Wifi 6E router (always get full 1500Mbps using a 2.5Gb dongle)… so even though a Wifi 7 card isn’t needed… it sure is nice to know it can work. Thanks @Nadim!

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I suppose one of the mediatek 7 cards but they are even harder to get the tha be200 was when I got mine.

Also not the best idea to get 7 stuff now it’s not even ratified.

I wanted the be200 as a better ax210 that may use even less power doing the same, if it ends up doing the actual 7 spec well that’d be a nice bonus.

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Oh hey, that’s my reddit post. I’ve updated it now, thanks for the sharing your results.

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I have a Framework 13 Intel 12th Gen. I installed the BE200 to go with my EERO Max 7.

Windows is reporting connected at 1700Mbps. Speed test shows 900Mbps on my gigabit internet. Upgraded the AX210NGW that came with the laptop.

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Hi,
The reason the be200 does not work on the AMD motherboard might be due to a “BIOS Whitelist”. I don’t know if “BIOS whitelist” is factually correct, but it is mentioned here:
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Gaming-Laptops/Legion-7-AMD-upgrading-to-WiFi7-Intel-BE200/m-p/5270899

be200 is a M.2 Type E card, and the slot on the Framework AMD motherboard is a M.2 type E slot, so the hardware should be compatible.
Given that the symptoms on the Framework are very similar to the symptoms in the Lenovo (URL above).
Maybe the Framework AMD motherboard BIOS has such a “BIOS whitelist”. In which case, if Framework are so inclined (have enough time on their hands, given all the other higher priority items they are dealing with at the moment) a BIOS update is likely to fix the problem. Probably a first step to that, is someone to publish what is on the current “BIOS whitelist”. Maybe a second step is for Framework to remove the “BIOS Whitelist” so users have the freedom to plug in any future, better wifi card they wish to use.

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That’s allmost certainly not the problem in this case (and likely not in the linked lenovo one either). Lenovo bios whitelists bitch at you with an error message not just refuse to post at all and it would not cause the crash when plugged in after boot (via thunderbolt or some suspend workaround).

The framework also doesn’t have a bios whitelist at all and I am not sure lenovo does either, at least on the thinkpads they stopped doing that a while ago.

This is less of a case of the manufacturer not wanting us to use it and more of an “it’s bugged”. The way it crashes and refuses to boot makes me pretty confident it’s between the soc and the card, maybe it uses pcie in a weird way the cpu really doesn’t like or tries to mess with some proprietary intel registers that causes the amd platform to crash or otherwise throw a fit. It may be solvable in an agesa update (even if it may be the card doing something wrong)

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@Adrian_Joachim
I was only speculating as to what the problem might be. I have no facts on the matter.

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Hi,

I thought it might be interesting.
The BE200 is recognized on a “banana PI R64” that is an - ARM 64 bit based system.
The driver has a bug so does not actually work, but it does not crash anything.
So, this proves the BE200 is doing PCIe OK and not any proprietary protocol.

root@bpi-r64-1:~# dmesg |grep iwl
[ 8.512368] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: assign IRQ: got 149
[ 8.517556] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 → 0002)
[ 8.523657] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: enabling bus mastering
[ 8.559207] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: Detected crf-id 0x2001910, cnv-id
0x2001910 wfpm id 0x80000000
[ 8.568086] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: PCI dev 272b/00f4, rev=0x472, rfid=0x112200
[ 8.784501] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: api flags index 2 larger than
supported by driver
[ 8.792276] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.97.4.2
[ 8.891945] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: loaded firmware version
83.d24e06ed.0 gl-c0-fm-c0-83.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
[ 8.913864] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: Detected Intel(R) TBD Bz device, REV=0x472
[ 8.956221] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: WRT: Invalid buffer destination
[ 9.226787] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: loaded PNVM version e28bb9d7
[ 9.340335] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: base HW address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (anonymized, it is a valid MAC address)
[406544.812198] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: WRT: Invalid buffer destination
[406545.164882] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: Registered PHC clock:
iwlwifi-PTP, with index: 0
[407167.666475] iwlwifi 0001:01:00.0: Unhandled alg: 0x707

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That is good, though that was already pretty much confirmed by it working on ancient intel platforms.

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Has anyone tested it on 12th gen intel?
For the price it’s worth trying but if anyone else already has that’s easier.

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Decided to order it, should be here by next week.

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Update. WiFi with 12th gen!
I get a speed of 1.7 gbit/s when sitting right next to my router.
Windows doesn’t seem to recognize the bluetooth adapter though, so I’m going to mess with that for a while
Edit, I had to manually delete the old bluetooth adapter from the device manager and then re-install the bluetooth drivers. It completely works now!

connected

connected2
connected2591×703 49.5 KB

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I wonder if it can also work on Core Ultra FW13. I assumed it can because it’s a newer model.