USB AC Adapters & windows 10

[Clark Griswald]

I'm curious if people have found any USB AC adapters that function properly within the windows 10 environment?
TIA-
Clark

 

[sfx2000]

Asus USB-AC56 seems ok with the Win10 provided drivers...

 

[Clark Griswald]

Thanks for the response.
The USB-AC56 seems to be the only solution I have found, while reading the forum, as it (usb-ac56) also seems to be the most expensive.
I just took the asus plunge with the purchase of the RT-AC88U. Amazon has the 88s on sale, if you are willing to wait, due to out of stock, as is the USB-AC56. Currently have two R7000s (router & AP), and plan to use RT-AC88U as main router with R7000s as APs.

 

[sfx2000]

The USB-AC56 is a decent enough card... very good range with the external antenna (high gain, not neccessary, and the card works fine without it, I would consider it a high-gain/hi-range card)

The drivers provided by Windows 10 are very conservative, and need some tweaking (favors 2.4GHz if running in common SSID environment for example). Don't use the Asus provided drivers, there's a memory leak in their util..

My only complaint is that it's just a very big device to hang off a USB port for a laptop... that and Linux support for it is weak due to Realtek not producing drivers beyond the 3.10.x Kernel there...

It plays well with Broadcom, Atheros, and Marvell chipsets in 5GHz - it's not quite as fast as a mini-PCI card, but more than good enough..

 

[sfx2000]

Might also consider the Edimax EW-7822UAC, which is the same chipset, and on the Amazon, it's 30 bucks...

 

[Clark Griswald]

I read the usb adapter review on the site, which also recommended the Edimax. I was hoping that real world use would have some clear windows 10 winners in the AC adapter market, but alas months after the win 10 roll out, people/companies still have major driver problems.
Thanks for your comments-
Clark

 

[Clark Griswald]

Purchased the Edimax EW-7822UAC from Amazon $23.99. Edimax site states Win 10 compatible, so I will post my findings, when product arrives.

Clark

 

[whitey019]

Netgear A6210 works fine here. A word of warning, beware of either over saturating or drawing too much power from your USB ports. I had trouble with both the Netgear A6210 and a RosewillAC1200UBE2 until I re-arranged USB devices and used a hub built into my monitor and isolated the network adapter by itself. I never really figured out the true cause.

 

[sfx2000]

Netgear A6210 works fine here. A word of warning, beware of either over saturating or drawing too much power from your USB ports. I had trouble with both the Netgear A6210 and a RosewillAC1200UBE2 until I re-arranged USB devices and used a hub built into my monitor and isolated the network adapter by itself. I never really figured out the true cause.

Good point - some of the 2-stream USB adapters will pull a fair amount of power, and un-powered hubs may be current limited...

Hubs can be funny in any event - not all are created equal, and USB3 hubs esp....not all will run at USB3 speeds if other devices are USB 2 or legacy...

 

[Clark Griswald]

Thanks for the information!

 

[Clark Griswald]

Confirmation that the Edimax EW-7822UAC does work properly as a plug and play within the win 10 OS.
Thank you sfx2000 & whitey019 for the information!
Have A Great Day-
Clark