What's new

Intel AX200 Wireless Card

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

coxhaus

Part of the Furniture
I have this new laptop with an Intel AX200 wireless card. I just noticed the way it set's up in Windows 10 is as "802.11a/b/g Wireless mode" which is slower than changing it to "802.11a/g wireless mode". My laptop is real fast so it took a little bit to find this. I am thinking it changes the latency.

I also switched in Windows 10 to 5 GHz to preferred mode.
 
It merely determines which standards will be accepted by the interface. Changing this will have no impact on performance, you should leave it to the default value unless you had a very specific reason for changing it. Especially since you aren't even using any of these standards, you are using 802.11n, 802.11ac or 802.11ax.
 
I know I am using well actually 802.11ac but there is a difference. I have a 867 connect and when I change the setting from "802.11a/b/g" to "802.11a/g" it takes a hesitation out. It is quicker or smoother as it takes an hesitation out.
 

Attachments

  • Annotation 2020-05-17 095020.png
    Annotation 2020-05-17 095020.png
    104.7 KB · Views: 319
  • Annotation 2020-05-17 0950201.png
    Annotation 2020-05-17 0950201.png
    37.3 KB · Views: 291
Last edited:
The web pages change faster without a hesitation.

PS
The driver I am using
 

Attachments

  • Annotation 2020-05-17 0950202.png
    Annotation 2020-05-17 0950202.png
    37.7 KB · Views: 295
Last edited:
Ping times is based on QoS that is built-in to Cisco's OS. I would imagen it is adjustable. But I will see what happens.

PS
Just on a quick test I don't see a difference in ping. My ping varies by 1 ms randomly. I am not sure the whole connection really reestablishes itself flipping back and forth. I may have to get completely out and start each time.
 
Last edited:
I never really noticed a real difference in switching between abg to ag but that is certainly an interesting find. Just a guess, I might be wrong but maybe there's a b network nearby causing the adapter to use mixed mode protection, leading to your results?

Try enabling background scan blocking or setting it to "always (disable) when on good connection" and Roaming to Low, might actually have a bigger impact on occasional latency spikes due less intermittent scanning.
 
Last edited:
I am sitting at the far corner of my house so I am not close to my second AP but I guess my neighbors on this side could be sending b packets out. My other AP is a matching Cisco WAP581 setup in single point setup so they are 1 virtual wireless AP together. I do not own any b devices as threw them long ago. I have my Cisco APs set at "N only" no b either. It is strange to me as Intel does not include N where a/b/g is and chose to move it up to where ac/ax is.
 
Last edited:
I have this new laptop with an Intel AX200 wireless card. I just noticed the way it set's up in Windows 10 is as "802.11a/b/g Wireless mode" which is slower than changing it to "802.11a/g wireless mode". My laptop is real fast so it took a little bit to find this. I am thinking it changes the latency.

I also switched in Windows 10 to 5 GHz to preferred mode.

I tested this myself and found the same thing as you coxhaus. Thank you for finding this. :)

You may want to update those drivers though, they're old. The current ones are 21.80.2.1 :)

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html

The link above helps me keep the Intel drivers updated and doesn't interfere with the Thinkpad drivers on my laptops. Be sure you update both the WiFi and the Bluetooth drivers together if you don't use the Intel Driver and Support Assistant from the link above. :)


How I tested the above is I downgraded to the driver version you used, rebooted the laptop, tested my normal browsing, changed the settings as suggested, rebooted the laptop once more, and compared.

There was a positive difference on my fast laptop too (4-core 8-thread and 64GB RAM on Windows 10 Pro).

Then I updated the drivers to the latest version (21.80.2.1) and did the appropriate reboots between tests and found the latest drivers to be even faster. :)

I tested with the RT-AX88U router about 38' and a floor and a couple of walls away with the laptop in Better Performance Power mode.

I repeated the same tests above with the RT-AX58U about 48' away on the same floor and a wall or two (depending on how the RF signal bounces) and found it equal for WiFi performance.

Both connections showed a 2.4GHz indicated connection rate in Windows (with both routers running 160MHz bandwidth mode).

The older driver without the tweak coxhaus found was the slowest at around 500-520Mbps download and upload. Changing that setting upped that to 550Mbps both ways or so, but it isn't significant.

The new driver changed the downloads to over 650Mbps and peaking at over 850Mbps with the tweak applied. This is significantly faster. Uploads peaked at 930Mbps (almost double!).

The unloaded latencies as reported by fast.com went down to 2ms (for the new driver and tweak) on most tests from the 4-5ms before.

The loaded latencies as reported by fast.com went from 14ms to 11ms avg. and the lowest seen a few times was 8-9ms with the new driver and tweak applied.

As @coxhaus states, it is a slight but real difference on an otherwise already fast laptop. :)

I hope to see more people test and report their results too.

Oh, and when I was doing the testing, the laptop at the two different locations was on a desk and not moved in the slightest between tests. :)

@coxhaus what other tweaks can you discover for us? :)
 
I think I am on the latest Intel wireless drivers. The first driver was just blue tooth even though it said it was both wireless and blue tooth. I then did the wireless only and it changed wireless drivers. Oh it did keep my wireless setting. I did not have to make any changes to my wireless settings.

It does seem snappier. My web pages are snappier now over faster on the old driver. This is of course better.
 

Attachments

  • Capture.PNG
    Capture.PNG
    28.2 KB · Views: 266
Last edited:
Now you are. :)

I don't think Intel's current driver downloads update both the WiFi and the Bluetooth together (anymore). They need to be done separately. :)
 

Latest threads

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top