IWLWIFI + AX210 / Linux - needs some work

[Tech Junky]

So, I've bene playing around with my TMHI 5G setup for a couple of months now trying to get the best speeds possible from it. I've stripped it from the case and took off anything that doesn't need to be on the "modem" and added some different antennas ranging from 3db-7db and converted the pigtails from SMA to RP-SMA to kill off the B71/N71 600mhz slow band .

I've come across a couple of postings around the web showing people hitting upwards of 700mbps+ and got curious so I took the gateway on the road and did some speed testing around town. Most of them averaged 200mbps DL which is about what I normally get too. Knowing I have a cell site mounted on the side of my building though and digging through other tech postings I decided to pull into the parking lot next door and run a speed test just to see on a hunch if LOS at a slight distance of ~50-100ft would make a difference compared to my window 20ft under the antennas on the side of the building.

I'm really wishing I didn't do this speed test because the damned thing hit 600mbps DL speeds and now I'm thinking of ways to get it to do that inside the house. So, I started by moving the GW over to the window closest to the antennas and didn't really see much improvement. I moved the GW off to the west ~15ft to see if cancelling out some of the signal would improve the throughput.

Anyway... so, moving the GW into a different room meant either plugging the server/router into the wall and jumping it through the Ethernet hub in the closet or simply use the wifi card to connect to the GW on AX. This is where things get interesting.... So, I've used an AX210 on my laptop w/ Linux and not had any issues and thought nothing of doing it from the server >> GW. SMH this is odd and slow and a bit of a PITA to setup with my unique network configuration using bonding / bridging.

Got it working w/ the GW / hidden SSID (needed to add a line to wpa to make it work). So, I pull up waveform to see what the hell it's doing and RX is sitting at 6mps while TX is over a 1gbps. WTH is going on here. Never an issue in the laptop/s over the past couple of years so, why is the stupid server being so difficult? Tried playing with different kernel versions down to 5.16.x and nothing changed. Found some "options" though that you can put into /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf based on the output from "iw list".

There's a few options you can invoke when probing the module to disable / enable / power save / etc. A few posts were mentioning using "11n_disable=" which didn't do much for the speed issue. "disable_11ac=" did bring the RX up but then dropped the TX down. " disable_11ax=" brought both to AC top level speeds of 866.7mbps which "works" but kind of defeats the purpose of using an AX card for AC speeds.

I'm considering grabbing a QCA2066-5 / WCN6856 based card for internalizing the AP function to the server again vs using an AP with a POE injector. I've done this before with a different card but, it took awhile for AX cards other than Intel to come to market and they're still about double the cost @ $67 but still far cheaper than a router w/ 6ghz. Switching to ath11k drivers should perform better than iwlwifi does but, If there's anyone that has seen / fixed this w/o using the flags to disable functions to band aid the speeds it would be appreciated.

 

[sfx2000]

So, I've used an AX210 on my laptop w/ Linux and not had any issues and thought nothing of doing it from the server >> GW. SMH this is odd and slow and a bit of a PITA to setup with my unique network configuration using bonding / bridging.

Are you using the AX210 in a desktop/server case? Could there be some EMI happening that one wouldn't see in a laptop integration?

Wouldn't be easier perhaps to run an ethernet cable over to the unit - the WWAN to LAN performance there is quite good, and better than 11ax in 5 gig...

One other thing - if you're doing iperf benchmarks or similar, stick to ipv6 - ipv4 testing is all over the place, and this is due to the 464XLAT mech they use for ipv4 support- the PLAT end seems to have congestion from time to time (CLAT is in the gateway, PLAT is in the core side).

My experience on Linux - I have an AX201 in a dell xps13, and it just works without have to turn the various knobs and levers, didn't have to enable or disable anything there - with ubuntu 22.04, it just worked, 11ax in 5GHz, found DFS channels over on my main network (the trashcan is supplemental) - wpa3 worked out of the box...

I'm also a TMHI customer, and with the Nokia gateway, basic setup pretty much just works... it's my backup/alternate network, not interconnected into the rest of my LAN/WLAN - I use it mostly for work stuff, which is MS Teams, slack, sharepoint, etc. thru the corp VPN (GlobalProtect). It just works... keep the work iphone on it, with some pandora in the background over bluetooth...

If one goes over to reddit, in the r/tmobileisp group, it's it an easy way to go down a black hole of misinformation - there are nuggets in good, but there's no moderation to really speak of, so the ratio of junk to gold isn't very good...

 

[Tech Junky]

Are you using the AX210 in a desktop/server case?

Yes

I'm looking at the RF characteristics not even the speedtesting because I know it's slow unless I apply the modifiers when probing it.

Nokia gateway

I've got the KVD21 and out of the box it's perfectly fine for the avg person just needing connectivity but, being a network person by trade I'm more likely to make it work beyond design.

The issue is more with the AX210 / IWLWIFI not properly allowing full bandwidth on the DL side w/o modifying the parameters or it just sits at 6mbps DL x 1gbps UL. This to me is odd. I wouldn't have caught it though w/o moving the KVD into another room to test the signal directly below the cell site antennas. Like you I didn't have any issues with the card/s in the laptop w/ Linux. I've had some quirks though since going to ADL on the server from an OTA TV card that didn't want to populate 50% of the TV channels but worked perfectly fine under my 8700K setup. Switching to UEFI from MBR was a forced move as well instead of CSM to bridge the drive to the system. The RTL 2.5GE port on the board doesn't like linux w/o blacklisting the module to force it to use a different version.

After all of the tweaks though it's 100% unless I decide to make a change then it's a bit of a small fight to weed out the gremlins and put them back into their cages. I since moved the KVD back into the same room and hooked up the Ethernet cables to it again but still have the AX210 bundled into the bo0 IF for redundancy if I decide to play around some more with the location / antennas.

Driving around with the KVD though showed something interesting as I was copying music from my phone to the Android head unit SD and from the phone directly in hotspot mode it might do ~4MB/s but through the KVD LAN it shot up to ~12MB/s. The HU is kind of dumb though and requires a visible SSID to connect which is normally not something I like to enable just as an additional layer of security.

 

[sfx2000]

Switching to UEFI from MBR was a forced move as well instead of CSM to bridge the drive to the system. The RTL 2.5GE port on the board doesn't like linux w/o blacklisting the module to force it to use a different version.

Looking at the photo of the mainboard - almost like the layout guy was told at the last minute - "hey we need an M2 slot for a wifi card" - and just dropped the CAD symbol there and they called it a day

UEFI - as much as I have security concerns about UEFI, it really does need to be primary for Intel processors these days compared to CSM and old-school BIOS.

On TMHI - sounds like you have the Arc, which I haven't had first hand experience with - IIRC, the WIFi at least, is Mediatek vs the QCA solution on the Nokia unit.

If I need to exercise my RF/networking chops, I've got a commercial product under development that keeps me busy enough... I don't have time to fart around with my Nokia gateway that just works - that being said, at least Nokia did a decent engineering effort on the radio package - it wasn't just "let's stick a bunch of antennas on it and pray that it works"

For $50 USD/month (less for some customers depending on other t-mobile services), it's a decent enough solution - it's not as consistent as my cable drop from CoxHSI, but it's also half the price (I pay $105/month for 300/30 on Cox).

 

[Tech Junky]

Yeah $50 vs cable $100 is enough incentive. I thought I would miss gig speeds but it's not that bad in off peak hours. Usually jumps to 300 or so. Having to use the phone app though to configure things vs the web GUI is a bit annoying. I found in most cases the antennas being anywhere between 3-7dbi don't make much of a difference in my case being under the cell site. Might try some 9dbi:s to see if I can catch that better bandwidth with a narrower focus of the RF.

 

[sfx2000]

being under the cell site

About the worst place one can be - the site is sectorized usually, but if one is underneath, all three sectors are essentially the same, and this can cause a lot of handoff overhead as the modem hops from sector to sector...

 

[Tech Junky]

Yup, one points North and the other is SW.

I suppose I could always tap the fiber and have 10ge. That doesn't solve the ax210 issue though.

 

[sfx2000]

Having to use the phone app though to configure things vs the web GUI is a bit annoying.

what's annoying is having to have the app to configure the gateway, and another app (or web site) to manage the billing account...

And the GW app only works on the LAN - oddly enough, they could support it for remote as the device is managed by them via CWMP (TR-069)

Hint with TMHI (and T-Mobile in general) - they've opted in all customers into data collection and providing that info for targeted ads, etc... You can opt-out by logging into their Web Site (or mobile app), and you have options to opt out for diagnostics data collection and targeted ads - say no to both...

 

[Tech Junky]

Already opted out even though all traffic is wrapped in a VPN anyway.

 

[Tech Junky]

Ordered a couple of EmWicon WMX7205 cards to internalize the AP function to add 6ghz and ditch the external AP / POE injector. Hopefully testing with these will show better performance w/o the need to hobble AX speeds to get higher RX speed.

I have a plan on using 1 to put in place of the AX210 for WIFI backup to the TMHI to be able to move the GW around and find better speeds. The 2nd one for the AP function using hostapd like I have in past with AC.

This does a couple of things which for one is getting away from using IWLWIFI by using ath11k instead to circumvent the speed issue. Also reduces the need for 2 devices / cables to do WIFI from the DIY server / router.

The unknown though is whether I can get the 160mhz working on the AX cards as the last time I used AC it was being temperamental but, since the physical AP has been stable @ 160mhz for quite awhile I suspect the interference causing it to fila on the prior attempts should be gone.

Just have to wait for the cards to show up along with some other stuff for the TMHI gateway as I picked up some directional antennas and bases to see if I can snag some more speed by aiming the antennas out the window with a narrow beam to catch the higher bandwidth and realize 600mbps DL consistently.

 

[Tech Junky]

I took off the disable statement on the module and now it seems to be hitting AX speeds somewhat at least it's not sticking at 6mbps

rx rate: 780.0 Mbit/s VHT-MCS 9 80MHz VHT-NSS 2, tx rate: 780.0 Mbit/s VHT-MCS 9 80MHz VHT-NSS 2

rx rate: 866.7 Mbit/s VHT-MCS 9 80MHz short GI VHT-NSS 2, tx rate: 780.0 Mbit/s VHT-MCS 9 80MHz VHT-NSS 2

rx rate: 6.0 Mbit/s, tx rate: 866.7 Mbit/s VHT-MCS 9 80MHz short GI VHT-NSS 2/s VHT-MCS 9 80MHz VHT-NSS 2

SMH.... a bit unreliable to say the least at this point. It's as if it's in learning mode or something trying to figure out its own capabilities.

 

[Tech Junky]

modinfo iwlwifi

parm:           swcrypto:using crypto in software (default 0 [hardware]) (int)
parm:           11n_disable:disable 11n functionality, bitmap: 1: full, 2: disable agg TX, 4: disable agg RX, 8 enable agg TX (uint)
parm:           amsdu_size:amsdu size 0: 12K for multi Rx queue devices, 2K for AX210 devices, 4K for other devices 1:4K 2:8K 3:12K (16K buffers) 4: 2K (default 0) (int)
parm:           fw_restart:restart firmware in case of error (default true) (bool)
parm:           nvm_file:NVM file name (charp)
parm:           uapsd_disable:disable U-APSD functionality bitmap 1: BSS 2: P2P Client (default: 3) (uint)
parm:           enable_ini:0:disable, 1-15:FW_DBG_PRESET Values, 16:enabled without preset value defined,Debug INI TLV FW debug infrastructure (default: 16)
parm:           bt_coex_active:enable wifi/bt co-exist (default: enable) (bool)
parm:           led_mode:0=system default, 1=On(RF On)/Off(RF Off), 2=blinking, 3=Off (default: 0) (int)
parm:           power_save:enable WiFi power management (default: disable) (bool)
parm:           power_level:default power save level (range from 1 - 5, default: 1) (int)
parm:           disable_11ac:Disable VHT capabilities (default: false) (bool)
parm:           remove_when_gone:Remove dev from PCIe bus if it is deemed inaccessible (default: false) (bool)
parm:           disable_11ax:Disable HE capabilities (default: false) (bool)

These are the flags I was referencing earlier. So, I stumbled across a new one listed somewhere when trying to confirm some CRDA / DFS info and it's

lar_disable=1

I took off all the other codes / flags and

|rx rate: 1200.9 Mbit/s 80MHz, tx rate: 1200.9 Mbit/s 80MHz

Still waiting on the new cards to ship....

There are some interesting characteristics though wen looking at the reg db output...

global
country US: DFS-FCC
        (902 - 904 @ 2), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (904 - 920 @ 16), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (920 - 928 @ 8), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (2400 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5350 @ 80), (N/A, 24), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5470 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 24), (0 ms), DFS
        (5730 - 5850 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5850 - 5895 @ 40), (N/A, 27), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
        (5925 - 7125 @ 320), (N/A, 12), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, PASSIVE-SCAN
        (57240 - 71000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

So, the 6ghz looks like it tops out with 320mhz and a huge band of 2160mhz for ~60ghz. But there's nothing out until WIFI7 for 320mhz channels but it's already baked into the card? I wonder if maybe pitting the two cards against each other will get to that 320mhz with some tweaking....

 

[sfx2000]

a huge band of 2160mhz for ~60ghz

wireless-regdb includes the 11ad/11ay bands...

 

[Tech Junky]

Well, the Mt7921K's were unimpressive. I discovered also hostapd doesn't want to enable ieee80211ax even though it's an option in the config templates along with anything that enable HE. I'm fairly certain this is a program issue and not related to the MTK chipset. I was able to get the MTK's working but, the speeds capped at B/G/N under 100mbps. The AX210 at least as a client hits top end 866mbs but can't be used for an AP beyond 2.4ghz bands due to it being a disabled / hobbled feature by Intel.

Now, the debate is whether to push forward with getting Qualcomm based chips and continue down the path of an internal AP w/ AC speeds until hostapd unlocks the AX feature set and enable it at a later time or just forgo the whole idea and wait for WIFI7 to be released.

 

[thetechhimself]

So, I've bene playing around with my TMHI 5G setup for a couple of months now trying to get the best speeds possible from it. I've stripped it from the case and took off anything that doesn't need to be on the "modem" and added some different antennas ranging from 3db-7db and converted the pigtails from SMA to RP-SMA to kill off the B71/N71 600mhz slow band .

I've come across a couple of postings around the web showing people hitting upwards of 700mbps+ and got curious so I took the gateway on the road and did some speed testing around town. Most of them averaged 200mbps DL which is about what I normally get too. Knowing I have a cell site mounted on the side of my building though and digging through other tech postings I decided to pull into the parking lot next door and run a speed test just to see on a hunch if LOS at a slight distance of ~50-100ft would make a difference compared to my window 20ft under the antennas on the side of the building.

I'm really wishing I didn't do this speed test because the damned thing hit 600mbps DL speeds and now I'm thinking of ways to get it to do that inside the house. So, I started by moving the GW over to the window closest to the antennas and didn't really see much improvement. I moved the GW off to the west ~15ft to see if cancelling out some of the signal would improve the throughput.

Anyway... so, moving the GW into a different room meant either plugging the server/router into the wall and jumping it through the Ethernet hub in the closet or simply use the wifi card to connect to the GW on AX. This is where things get interesting.... So, I've used an AX210 on my laptop w/ Linux and not had any issues and thought nothing of doing it from the server >> GW. SMH this is odd and slow and a bit of a PITA to setup with my unique network configuration using bonding / bridging.

Got it working w/ the GW / hidden SSID (needed to add a line to wpa to make it work). So, I pull up waveform to see what the hell it's doing and RX is sitting at 6mps while TX is over a 1gbps. WTH is going on here. Never an issue in the laptop/s over the past couple of years so, why is the stupid server being so difficult? Tried playing with different kernel versions down to 5.16.x and nothing changed. Found some "options" though that you can put into /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf based on the output from "iw list".

There's a few options you can invoke when probing the module to disable / enable / power save / etc. A few posts were mentioning using "11n_disable=" which didn't do much for the speed issue. "disable_11ac=" did bring the RX up but then dropped the TX down. " disable_11ax=" brought both to AC top level speeds of 866.7mbps which "works" but kind of defeats the purpose of using an AX card for AC speeds.

I'm considering grabbing a QCA2066-5 / WCN6856 based card for internalizing the AP function to the server again vs using an AP with a POE injector. I've done this before with a different card but, it took awhile for AX cards other than Intel to come to market and they're still about double the cost @ $67 but still far cheaper than a router w/ 6ghz. Switching to ath11k drivers should perform better than iwlwifi does but, If there's anyone that has seen / fixed this w/o using the flags to disable functions to band aid the speeds it would be appreciated.

The intel generic driver in Ubuntu is quite stubborn; no matter 8265, ax200, ax210, none will break 400mb/sec "real" bandwidth regardless of firmware used; hard setting bandwidth on the 5ghz band on my router does get it up to 450, but not stable, and also at the expense of my smart tv and security IOCs in my house loosing connection.

Windows 10 21H2 has no problem on the other hand with the latest drivers in maxing out my ISP for testing purposes (900mb/sec, with a 1400mb negotiated to my Asus GT-AX6000) on the AX210. Clearly this is a driver problem. Debug messages with newer firmware indicate presence of unsupported API calls, presumably from newer firmware that isn't supported yet in the latest driver. My bet? Intel just backported existing AC support for AX chips in Linux just to make them work, not necessarily work as they're supposed to.

Tell me more about this QCA2066-5/WCN6856... Expensive for a 2230 card, yes, but is it stable on Ubuntu 22.04 with ath11k drivers? If it truly has AX support in Debian, and without hiccups, I'm listening.

 

[Tech Junky]

Well, Intel in Linux in client mode works just fine. I have no issues booting the laptop up in Linux and breaking gig speeds. The issue is putting it into AP mode it only allocates 40mhz of bandwidth on 5ghz because they kneecapped it.

The new qca cards would use ath11 and should work fine for an AP use. I was using the ath10 driver with a prior setup and got full speed AC speed from it as it had dual qca chips on it.

I haven't pulled the trigger on another card though as I'm considering other things to do in the meantime. Waiting things out should bring the price down on them eventually but with wifi 7 around the corner it's a bit of fomo. 7 offers 320mhz bandwidth which is more appealing than same speeds but with a private 6ghz to use.

 

[thetechhimself]

As a client (end-user usage), not as an AP, I simply cannot get the AX210 on 22.04.1 (Jammy) to push past 400mbs, even though it thinks it's negotiating 1200mbs, 1440mbs, etc from the router. Even pulled the ol RT-AX86U out of the closest, which some clients don't appreciate the management packet security or range extension magic, nothing.

I'm new to wireless in Linux world, IW appears to be the correct CLI to manipulate the WiFi? Maybe not? Not seeing the wlan interface? Do I need to do anything to get 866mbs out of the AX210 before I throw in the towel? Not concerned about Window; Linux is my daily driver for personal use of late.

How's the MTK for a client in Linux? AX support, stable?

I presume you never did get your hands on a 7205... Sounds promising. If you think it's going to deliver, very interested.

I gave the Killer N1535 a go, it's worse than my 8265, AX200/210 and bcm94360ng... Apparently it has poor driver support, even though it's an ath...

I should add I have no trouble getting 900mbs out of the AX210, in Windows. Again, no interest in running it in Windows, and my Macbook hits 1300, easy. All to say I don't have a localized issue, that I know of, preventing my hitting over 400mb in linux... I simply must be doing something wrong or the Intel driver is kneecapped for AX I'm gathering here... Any advice on how to get the ax210 to perform better than my lowly bcm94360ng, is appreciated in Linux. Or, if you think the MTK will treat me well as a client, sure. Couple bucks is small potatoes for getting the most out of my multi-gig comcast...

 

[thetechhimself]

Well, Intel in Linux in client mode works just fine. I have no issues booting the laptop up in Linux and breaking gig speeds. The issue is putting it into AP mode it only allocates 40mhz of bandwidth on 5ghz because they kneecapped it.

The new qca cards would use ath11 and should work fine for an AP use. I was using the ath10 driver with a prior setup and got full speed AC speed from it as it had dual qca chips on it.

I haven't pulled the trigger on another card though as I'm considering other things to do in the meantime. Waiting things out should bring the price down on them eventually but with wifi 7 around the corner it's a bit of fomo. 7 offers 320mhz bandwidth which is more appealing than same speeds but with a private 6ghz to use.

I should add, looking for a decent 2230, 2x2... That's available for Linux... You're not a mind reader. The MTK was the only one I found prior to this thread that's a 2x2 2230 footprint. Any others that are supported under the ath11 I should be looking at for AX support?

 

[Tech Junky]

Ok, so Linux for WIFI can get tricky depending on what you're doing.

For hosting an AP in the past I used a qnap qwa-ac2600 adapter until I got sick of waiting for an AX card for the internal AP function. At which point I went with an external AP of NWA210AX.

I didn't test the MTK as a client option because that wasn't the intent of use for me. With the QNAP though I could saturate the line up to ~980mbps with an AX200/210 client adapter.

Killer is a waste of time and just hype to get more money out of gamers. Now, the AX411 with DCT on the other hand actually does what it says it will do by combining both 2.4 / 5 ghz bands into a single connection as I've seen 1.5gbps from it. The downside is you have to have ADL or newer CPU for CNVIO2 cards to operate at peak performance.

Two parts of the equation though.... AP + Client... if they don't have the features needed to get beyond 1gbps then it's a waste of time. If the port on the AP is 1gbps it's a waste of time. If the LAN connections don't exceed 1gbps it's a waste of time. The complete path end to end between devices needs to match up for the speeds you're trying to accomplish.

On the wired side I'm running 5GE because my NAS drives hit 400MB/s+ and when I want to copy things quickly an ethernet between laptop / server delivers those speeds and leaves room for other traffic to not be impacted.

So, the other trick to Linux + AX200/210 cards is to update the firmware files from Intel and put them into /lib/firmware. I go through my system and remove most of the intel files though to keep it efficient on boot instead of searching through the multiple files and it just reduces the clutter.

 sudo lspci -s 00:14.3 -vvv
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-S PCH CNVi WiFi (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 00b4
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin C routed to IRQ 18
        Region 0: Memory at 604b114000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
                Status: D0 NoSoftRst+ PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
                Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [40] Express (v2) Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
                DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0
                        ExtTag- RBE- FLReset+
                DevCtl: CorrErr- NonFatalErr- FatalErr- UnsupReq-
                        RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr+ NoSnoop+ FLReset-
                        MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 128 bytes
                DevSta: CorrErr- NonFatalErr- FatalErr- UnsupReq- AuxPwr+ TransPend-
                DevCap2: Completion Timeout: Range B, TimeoutDis+ NROPrPrP- LTR+
                         10BitTagComp- 10BitTagReq- OBFF Via WAKE#, ExtFmt- EETLPPrefix-
                         EmergencyPowerReduction Not Supported, EmergencyPowerReductionInit-
                         FRS-
                         AtomicOpsCap: 32bit- 64bit- 128bitCAS-
                DevCtl2: Completion Timeout: 16ms to 55ms, TimeoutDis- LTR+ OBFF Disabled,
                         AtomicOpsCtl: ReqEn-
        Capabilities: [80] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=16 Masked-
                Vector table: BAR=0 offset=00002000
                PBA: BAR=0 offset=00003000
        Capabilities: [100 v1] Latency Tolerance Reporting
                Max snoop latency: 0ns
                Max no snoop latency: 0ns
        Capabilities: [164 v1] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0010 Rev=0 Len=014 <?>
        Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi

looking at for AX support?

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If you want to get away from the standard Intel options there's very few options still even a couple years after they released the 200/210 cards. Half of the issue is releasing the spectrum worldwide and the other half is chip supply apparently. On the router / AP side it's taken just as long but, it seems like things are finally ramping up on that side as well. With WIFI 7 coming in under 2 years though it's a hard sell with all of the delays and lack of market saturation at this point to sink money into gear.

The AX411 works as an AP as would the 200/210 cards if you tweak how the IWL file works and disable some checks to enable AP hosting but, you'll still be limited in bandwidth. The Qualcomm based options from prior experience don't have this issue but, I haven't tested them personally at this point as I don't really need to spend the $75 on card + shipping but, it's still intriguing as a solution. Had the initial purchase been in stock and shipped I could provide more info and POC to the performance.

multi-gig comcast

I was using a MB8600 and LACP 2 ports off the modem into my DIY setup to get the 1.5gbps out of the connection. I ditched them though for TMHI for $50/mo and unlimited data and double the upload speeds. Sure, the gig speeds were nice but, not needed 100% of the time but, the sticking issue was gig gave 40mbps upload vs 10mbp upload on the lower tiers. Plus the only other option was ATT DSL which is stupid for 25mbps @ $45/mo.

 

[Tech Junky]

This is the AX411 I'm using in my laptop. Of course things transfer so quickly it's hard to grab screenshots w/o being on top of it during a transfer. Sustained transfers hit 1.5gbps though consistently in both directions.