I’ve got a Framework 16 running Fedora Linux 42. It came with the MediaTek RZ616 Wi-Fi card, and I was having major issues with it. Pings were usually fine, but going to any site for the first time would sit for 3-4 seconds before loading the page. I tried a lot of things to diagnose it - originally I thought it was either IPv6 weirdness or DNS issues. There were similar issues with speedtests too though - The speed would start slow, then speed up, then sit still (0 bytes/sec) for 3-4 seconds at a time. Speeds fluctuated the whole time.
I swapped the Wi-Fi card for an Intel AX210, and all the issues went away. Pages load as expected, and I have no trouble consistently reaching ~765Mbps in internet speed tests over wifi.
I know it’s an older card, but my home wifi is only Wi-Fi 6 at the moment (2 x TP-Link Omada EAP670 v1 access points), not even Wi-Fi 6E, and I don’t have any plans to replace the APs any time soon, so that’s not a major issue for me.
I bought mine from Amazon, just because the price was cheaper than the price + shipping from Framework’s store.
I know this is probably a well-known thing by now, but I just thought I’d share my experience in case anyone else encounters the same issue.
I did the same thing with my Framework Laptop 16 after getting tired of the slow startups, hangups, bluetooth dropouts, etc. Changed to the Intel AX210 and it was a night and day difference.
I had waited until I was going to order some more cards and another accessory and added the AX210 to my next order. This card from Intel It has been around long enough there are lots of them in the wild now.
Sadly, Intel’s networking division is getting paired down as it was not making enough money for Intel. The newer WiFi (AX211, etc.) cards are using the hardware tied to their processors which is great if you are Intel only, but doesn’t help if using AMD or anyone else’s processor. If I really need faster speeds a hardwired dock is the way to go.
I was worried they’d start doing that more. Some of their M.2 Wi-Fi cards use CNVi instead of standard PCIe. They’ve been doing that as far back as 2017 with the Wireless-AC 9560, but it seems like they’re doing it more now, and making fewer models of regular PCIe Wi-Fi cards.
Some systems (especially small form factor PCs) have M.2 slots that only support CNVi, which is annoying because you can’t reuse the slot for another purpose (for example, a Google Coral AI accelerator).
I saw a lot of posts saying this, just recently upgraded my FW13 on 7840U to the AX210… However, the wifi speeds are worse than that god awful mediatek chip. I was getting reasonable speeds beside my router with it, now, even 2 feet from my router on 5ghz I’m getting 150 down instead of 500.
What could be causing this? Fedora is fully up to date and kernel has appropriate drivers?
I’d double-check that the antennas are securely attached. When I was replacing the Wi-Fi card on mine, I thought the antennae were properly attached, only for one of them to pop off when I started to put everything back together.
That is not true, AX211 is NOT newer than AX210, it is just a CNVi version of AX210 released simultaneously with it.
Intel has been doing these simultaneous releases for a few generations:
