It’s possible this is just a Linux thing or a “me” hardware thing, but the RZ717 has performed like a dog for me, at least in combination with my WiFi APs (TL-EAP610, TL-EAP773). I have the Framework 13 with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mainboard. It’s entirely possible that this is just a Mediatek driver thing. I searched and searched, and I saw bits and bobs here and there about driver updates coming in Linux kernel versions that were lower than the Bazzite kernel version (6.17.7 at the moment), but nothing conclusive. I’ve had this thing in for less than an hour so I don’t have long-term experience with this thing, but the speedtest results on the LAN went from ~150Mbps to ~1.2Gbps, and the experience of loading poorly optimized web sites (Aliexpress, Omada controller) drastically improved, so I think the latency is improved as well as the throughput. I was contemplating doing a whole extra ethernet run to put an AP in my bedroom to improve signal quality, and this $40 completely solved my problem. My work Macbook M4 gets ~1.2Gbps in the bedroom, so I knew it had to something to do with the Framework.
It’s tempting to say this should never have happened in the first place and the RZ717 part should not have been chosen due to bad Linux driver support, but I think spotty driver support is just part of the Linux ecosystem. So, instead, I will reflect on how valuable it is that I can crack open the case and swap out buggy parts like this. If you have an RZ717 and you experience even slight wireless lag, you should do this upgrade, hands down. It’s so worth it.
Now, let’s see how much of the TL-EAP773 10GbE backhaul I can actually use if I position this thing ideally…
The Mediatek MT7925 actually has pretty great Linux driver support. I run two mediatek mt7921’s in two devices, and I run the Mediatek MT7925 in my framework.
The only things I have had to tweek to get them to work right is disabling power saving and making sure my regulation domain was set. If you’re not in the US, try the RZ717 with one of or a combination of both of the following:
Set the regulatory domain
Modern WiFi cards are supposed to set the regulatory domain by scanning the various access points around them, but if that isn’t working, you can set it manually. Make sure you have the wireless regdomain installed (I don’t know bazzite), then edit /etc/conf.d/wireless-regdom. Uncomment the line that contains your country.
Disable wifi power saving
WiFi power saving can be disabled via NetworkManager or by using the iw command directly. If you are using NetworkManager (which is the default on basically every distro ever), you need to create the file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi-powersave.conf with the following contents
[connection]
wifi.powersave=2
This will disable WiFi powersaving for every connection automatically. Apply this by either restarting your computer, doing # nmcli g reload in the terminal, or restarting the NetworkManager daemon via systemd
As an aside, I am regularly able to achieve 1Gbps speeds on my RZ717 in areas with access points that offer that speed. It sounds like to me that you have an abnormal configuration. Furhtermore, you shouldn’t make the claim, “… and the RZ7a7 part should not have been chosen due to bad Linux driver support…”. This just shows to me that you are only using your own experiences as the deciding factor. I know you have looked around, but it seems like to me that you really didn’t understand anything. Mediatek has been proactive with linux support, probably due to its partnership with AMD.
Thanks for the suggestions! My searches had not uncovered the idea of tweaking the regulatory domain, so that’s new to me. I had encountered the suggestion to disable power saving, and your instructions are different from what I tried, so perhaps yours would work, but my efforts failed. Maybe your suggestions will help the next searcher.
One of the joys of written internet communication is that nuance and context sometimes get lost. I qualified my statement with “It’s tempting to say…”, so I don’t think I’m claiming that this is a bad part or that AMD and Mediatek don’t support Linux, but I see how it can be interpreted that way. Clearly, you’ve had success, and you’re right, one should not conclude that a part is bad based on one individual experience.
With respect to my configuration, I chose Bazzite in part because it is listed as one of the Framework-supported Linux distros, so to restate my point, it’s that, given that I am using the standard, supported Linux distro, it’s reasonable to expect that the WiFi card should work at full bandwidth out of the box, and that if there are any compatibility gotchas, that’s the kind of thing that I would expect Framework to catch during QA.
However, despite that missed expectation and slightly negative user experience, I value the open, modular, repairable nature of the product. I was able to successfully swap out the card in <20min, and perhaps it’s trivial, but it felt like a victory worth celebrating, and an experience worth sharing.
1.2Gbit seems kind of disapointing, I would expect a fancy wifi7 card that costs at least double what a ax210 costs to perform at least a little better.
If you have an RZ717 and you experience even slight wireless lag, you should do this upgrade, hands down. It’s so worth it.