Agreed, if they fix that the be210 is probably going to be quite good (judging by how the ax210 is the second gen ax one and it’s really good). Unless they feel like changing the naming scheme again XD.
So it’s been a few days with the Qualcomm QCNCM865 now. I’ve done a bit of testing and daily usage with it and so far it’s been pretty good. Here are some points on it as of kernel version 6.18 and the latest firmware packages:
- The connection is very stable. The Mediatek card that the FW16 comes with drops approximately 12-15% of all packets and has an upwards of 5000-10000ms (yes, 10 seconds) of latency to my local network. It’s a night and day difference, with essentially no dropped packets and a latency of a few milliseconds at most no matter which frequency is used.
- All frequencies work out of the box. I did not need to set my regulatory domain for 6GHz to work properly. I was able to use all channels and frequencies that the “US” region allows without any problem.
- I was able to set very aggressive band steering settings on my AP and the card had no issue working with that but only after I set 802.11w (Protected Frame Management/PMF) to be mandatory on all frequencies. For some reason having it set to optional caused issues when switching between 2.4GHz and higher frequencies, causing brief deauthentications.
- MLO is a no-go for me. However, I cannot determine if it’s due to the card itself or if it’s an issue with my AP as I have no other devices that support it and I’m not finding any logs or messages that indicate what the issue is.
- For some reason, after coming from sleep it takes quite a bit of time for the card to come back online and reconnect compared to my other devices. Somewhere between 30-60 seconds after opening the laptop before it finally reconnects and gets a new IP address. Not a big deal, but it’s definitely noticeable compared to my other devices that will reconnect in a few seconds at most.
The Qualcomm card works well, even if there are a few minor issues. The band steering issue with PMF was a pain to figure out, and MLO not working at all was a disappointment but not entirely unexpected. Considering it’s the only Wi-fi 7 card that seems to actually work on the FW16, I’m not complaining too much.
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This is the only “issue” I have with mine…..but it’s not 30-60 seconds. Mine takes 10-15 seconds to reconnect which already seems way too long to me. I can’t imagine 30+ seconds. And it didn’t always take this long to reconnect either. It started after some firmware update a few months back. But for me, 10-15 seconds isn’t that bad.
And completely off-topic, I was messing around with ath12k firmware to see if bleeding edge got working MLO yet (spoiler, it doesn’t work). I locked up my machine at one point when I attempted to remove the ath12k module and had to hold down the power button to force a powerdown. And doing that FIXED MY DEAD TOUCHPAD that has not worked for 2 days.
So, thank you. 
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