[GUIDE] Successful Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) on Framework 13 AMD with Qualcomm QCNCM865 and Arch Linux

That appears to be a dell P/N and the X01 at the end means its preproduction. Found they are on aliexpress but out of stock currently.

How’s the idle and load power consumption on this thing?

Still kinda hope the be200 situation gets fixed at some point but good to have alternatives.

aliexpress, but not available anymore

that not my card, just an image that I found on internet, it was just to show the actual name as @jared_kidd didn’t understand that it’s the name of the card

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I didn’t test that

Could you?

Also it looks like some pople have be200s running on amd desktop systems so it may really just need an agesa fix. Maybe in a couple years (hopefully not but probably not soon XD) when we get the next bios update it just works.

Marked the initial post as a guide, made wiki.

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Out of curiosity, I’m wondering how switching networks behaves for you? @GreyXor
I have one in my 12th gen, while I got the card to work and connect to the first network I use at work, I cannot connect to any other network.

After trying to connect to another network I can’t connect to the first one until I reboot. This is on ubuntu 23.10 with 6.8rc7, Just trying to find out if this issue exists on Arch as well, if not I may be trying out Arch in the near future.

No problem with network switching, for now I have two issues:

  • ath12k master crash if I upload too much
  • bluetooth won’t connect to audio devices
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What is the best way to buy this chip?

I am checking AliExpress and it is sold all the time.

Maybe there is a better platform? (I love to see it in Framework Marketplace)

I don’t know sorry, I was lucky, I directly contacted a reseller on alibaba, several email exchanges then they sent me the wifi card for $30 delivery included.

Sooo i decided to bite the bullet And order this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVJPCQFJ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details its the NCM865 will test it in my Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen edition. And see how it works for me. Ordered it 3 days ago it has now gone up $15 from what i paid.

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I go ahold of some of these yesterday and all I can say is, they’re just barely functional on Linux right now.

On kernel 6.8.2 on Arch, you need to do what @GreyXor says in the original post just to get the card to function, however I ran into several issues:

  1. Large loads, like a speed test, will cause the card to crash and become unavailable until the machine is completely powered off. Whatever happens to the card also causes the machine to be unable to reboot (i.e. Linux will do its reboot procedure and appear to reboot the machine, but then it just hangs with a blank screen, similarly to what happens when you try to power on the laptop with the BE200 installed).
  2. Bluetooth worked until something disconnects or you try to turn off bluetooth, at which point Bluetooth becomes non-functional until powered off.
  3. 6ghz networks can be seen but will not connect.

I tried using Kvalo’s ath kernel by modifying the linux-git aur package, and while it compiled just fine I was greeted with a blank screen upon reboot. I didn’t spend any more time looking into using that kernel.

Then I tried linux-mainline from the aur, which I believe has most of the patches already from Kvalo, and it worked better, but still had some problems:

  1. While more stable, speed tests were only around 200Mbit on 5ghz when I can get 800+ with an AX210.
  2. 6ghz WPA3 networks can be seen but disconnect pretty much immediately after connecting.
  3. 6ghz WPA3 Enterprise networks cannot be seen at all and will not connect even if trying to connect to a “hidden” network.

So, as of right now my AX210 wifi cards are going back in my machines until either these become more stable, a workaround for getting the BE200 to work on AMD is discovered (though I hear it’s still lacking proper Linux support, so there’s that), the BE202 variant becomes available (It’s supposed to be A+E keyed which will likely solve the problem), or some other viable alternative comes around for Linux that doesn’t require an out-of-tree driver (so, no Broadcom and likely no Realtek adapters).

Edit: Forgot to mention: on linux-mainline 6.9-rc1, it’s no longer necessary to pull down the regdb.bin and boards.bin files from git.

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Bravo! Exactly what I needed. Worked for me with the same Wi-Fi card on a fresh install of Endeavour OS. Thank you.

Hello,
yes you can use the aur package linux-mainline and changing the source to:
“$_srcname::git+https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/kvalo/ath.git#branch=master-pending”

After 2 weeks of use on my framework and a couple weeks on my Alienware I can confirm it works great and has none of the issues I had seen with previous Qualcomm cars I have used. (I have yet to use the included card) note I run win 11 pro

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Does this card work on Fedora 40 (newer kernels) out of the box now? Or do we still have to do stuff to make it work?

I didn’t try it in Fedora 40 exactly. But I try this WiFi card on 39 with 6.9 kernel preview.

It was a little better, but still unusable. WiFi dies on hard load, Bluetooth can’t connect to my headphones.

Does it need an adapter for Ryzen 7 5700U and currently has a WiFi6 card right now. I know with computers with Intel processors would just use an E key adapter. Not exactly positive if I need anything else for my mini PC other than the QCNCM865

Crap, it sounds like the experience I currently have with the Mediatek RZ616.

I guess I’ll just get the AX210 for now. It’s a out $20 on Amazon. A reliable connection for $20 is better than a flakey connection with the other WIFI cards (Qualcomm, Mediatek, and the BE200 won’t even work…). It’s like we don’t really have a choice but to get the AX210.