Wi-Fi Issues on Ryzen 7 350 board, tried both official adapters (Kernel 6.19.11)

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

Which Linux distro are you using?
Arch with KDE Plasma

Which kernel are you using?
6.19.11

Which BIOS version are you using?
Latest

Which Framework Laptop 13 model are you using?
AMD Ryzen 7 350

My experience with Linux on the Framework has been pretty sub-par, both with Fedora 42 and now Arch, mostly because while it performs really well overall some very basic things just do not work right.

I preordered this laptop with the Ryzen 7 350 board, which came with the Mediatek/AMD RZ717 card included. At home with my 5GHz wifi 7 router it works pretty well and I get the full speed but on any network (including that) I get frequent dropouts requiring me to disconnect and reconnect to the network. At my parentsā€™ specifically where there are a couple different APs, some dual-band with 802.11r band steering and some older wifi 4 stations with just 2.4GHz, I get absolutely terrible performance even for 2.4GHz and even with the older wifi 4 stations unplugged.

After reading several threads mentioning better performance with Intelā€™s AĪ§210 card, I decided to give it a go. Iā€™m currently at my parentsā€™ and the issues still persist. I get close to 10mbps on a line that should be doing 300 (or at the very least a couple hundred with 2.4GHz) and gigabit to my server (my decade old macbook gets this speed easily when measured with iperf). Even when it connects to the 5GHz band, which it only does every now and then, the KDE wifi panel says itā€™s getting ā€œ30mbpsā€ when my phone easily does 150 at the same location.

Is there some extra configuration that needs to be done with the new card? Iā€™m using Networkmanager with wpa_supplicant as the backend and while I tried iwd, itā€™s actually even worse and disconnects every few minutes. Considering people reported having the AX210 just plug and play working several kernels ago, Iā€™m bound to be doing something wrong here.

Any help greatly appreciated, especially if you have a similar setup that just happens to work, or if youā€™ve experienced the same issues.

1 Like
2

Did you set up ā€˜wireless regulatory databaseā€™? See the Arch Wiki on WiFi ā†’ regulatory database where some countries use parts of the available radio spectrum for non-wifi tasks, so the default is to shrink the channels available for your wifi bandwidth.

3

I havenā€™t seen that mentioned anywhere and since my router chooses the band and not the laptop I donā€™t see why this would affect anything, especially related to band steering but I can give it a go.

Edit: just checked with iw reg get, I set my region correctly back when I installed Arch so this isnā€™t it.

1 Like
4

Maybe you need to work through this thread (link to last post, but you will need to search up the htread) for a fix.

5

I donā€™t see how that thread is relevant at all given theyā€™re discussing Wifi 7 support and Qualcomm chipsets. Searched for AX210 and while some people say it works for them they donā€™t mention any specific steps or changes they had to make for it to work, it seems to have just worked for them.

6

OK, there is another thread where somebody has done a considerable amount of work on the Linux driver for the 717, getting rid of a lot of bugs along the way. I canā€™t find the thread at the moment, but IIRC it was in the Frameork 16 forum.

7

OK, went looking for the thread. This is the one I found through search, but the link at the start of the post should take you to an earlier thread where he went through the process and akso had driver download links.

8

Interesting. I might have a look at it eventually. Iā€™m back home now and the AX210 works good so far with no disconnects or anything. The major problem is at my parentsā€™ where I have several different APs with band steering and some that are 2.4 only and some dual band wifi 6.