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Forum Discussion
All those with 5GHz detection issues (or had to change router channel) please read!
So I just picked up an A6210-1000S here in the USA and went about setting it up. It seemed to work fine but wouldn't detect my 5GHz wireless network. After finding a thread on here about changing the router channel to something low like 48, I indeed got it to work...but why was this adapter requiring such a thing?
A friend pointed out that it sounded like an incorrect region setting. As you likely already know, there is no adjustment for region in the adapter's device page. In fact, rather jarringly the only option there is 2.4/5/both. Updating to the latest Netgear driver did not change this.
However, getting the latest driver from Mediatek's website (the Chinese manufacturer of the chip Netgear uses in the A6210) resulted in many more features being exposed to the user in the device's properties page. Of particular interest was that by default, the A6210 was using 2.4GHz Region 5 and 5GHz region 1, both of which are entirely incorrect for the USA. Both of these should be set to Region 0 in order to comply with US regulations as well as ensure compatibility with US routers.
It would appear that Netgear has used Mediatek's defaults (China?) rather than enforcing their own default US channels, thus causing the incompatibility issues. I can tell you that as of right now I am posting this thread with the A6210 operating on channel 149 with no problem! :)
16 Replies
minions08 wrote: Hi malrats,
Do you have the same issue that it is having problems with other channels?
The A6210 hadn't had the channel issue. It worked right out of the box with the latest Netgear driver. It was that major (15% plus) packet loss that was the issue, and that was happening on whichever PC I was connecting it to. Really strange. That's returned and I'm using the Linksys WUSB6300 at the moment, which of course isn't without its own issues as well.
I can't win!- And now I'm back to the original A6200 which still won't connect to 5GHz channels.
I really don't know what to do. :( :( :( - Does it work with the 3 channels with what you have mentioned here?
http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=97016 minions08 wrote: Does it work with the 3 channels with what you have mentioned here?
http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=97016
Yes. It will only connect to those 3 channels. Which means that even one of the non-DFS channels (48, I think) doesn't work.
I'm still just completely baffled.- Thanks for the info. They have provided firmware for non-dfs channels but for UK.
http://support.netgear.com/product/a6200 - Yeah, good luck with using any USB3 AC1200 adapter that isn't the A6210. Every single one uses a Realtek chipset that has horrendous drivers which will cause your system to BSOD for no reason every so often. If you're lucky, once a month or so. If not, maybe twice or so. I had a D-Link that is currently being used as a spacer for my desktop microphone. :p
I'm honestly not sure why you're getting such huge packet loss from your A6210. Just to be sure, you did remove all traces of Netgear drivers and software from your machine before switching to the Mediatek driver, yes?
