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RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

NOiSEA
Guide

RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

When will this be fixed? I have been patient, waiting for this to be fixed in a router firmware update, but how much longer do we have to wait? I bought this router thinking that it would be compatible with Wifi 6.

 

It works fine for a while but eventually the downloads drop from 500-600 Mbps down to about 2-5 Mbps. Uploads drop from about 37-38 Mbps to about 1 Mbps. It happened while I am writing this post so I will post a screenshot of the results.

 

Disabling and Enabling the AX200 in Device Manager will temporarily fix it but I shouldn't have to keep doing that.

 

Netgear please fix your router software.

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 1 of 14

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

What is this stuff on the client side at your end?

 

A lot of wifi devices seem to arrive with drivers that don't work. There's been quite a bit of conversation around that in this place.

 

I would have thought that these things would have been sorted by now, but chipset drivers, if that's what you are relying on, don't get picked up by things like Windows Update.

 

Maybe you have been down that road. You don't say.

Message 2 of 14
NOiSEA
Guide

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz


@michaelkenward wrote:

What is this stuff on the client side at your end?

 


I have the most up to date chipset drivers from the AMD website for the x570 motherboard

The motherboard is MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI (MS-7B93)

 

I have the most up to date drivers for the 2 Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160mhz network adapters that I have. 1 of the adapters is the one that comes pre-installed with the motherboard and the other is this one that I bought because I thought it might be a bad network adapter in the motherboard: 

Asus AX3000 (Pce-AX58BT)

 

I have kept all of the drivers for the adapters up to date with the newest drivers available each day for the last 3 months since I built this PC. Same with the router. I meticulously check for driver and firmware updates because I would like this fixed.

 

I have not had a problem with any other devices connecting to the RAX120. Also, when I use a usb NETGEAR A7000 wifi USB3.0 Adapter, I do not have this problem. The problem only exists when connecting to RAX using either one of my 2 different AX200 160mhz adapters.

 

But I bought the WiFi 6 adapters specifically because I thought the RAX120 was WiFi 6 capable. I did not know that it would not work with WiFi 6 PC network adapters. 

 

I think there is some confusion where people think that the RAX120 works with AX200 network adapters because it works fine for a period of time before this issue occurs. Often it may be fine for 1-2 hours or even more, but at some point the speeds will drop significantly.

Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 3 of 14

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz


@NOiSEA wrote:

@michaelkenward wrote:

What is this stuff on the client side at your end?

 


I have the most up to date chipset drivers from the AMD website for the x570 motherboard

The motherboard is MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI (MS-7B93)

 


That's good. You seem to be on the case. I mentioned it because not everyone realises that they need to check this.

 

Early on there were lots of complaints about Intel's drivers.

 

Sometimes motherboard makers get behind the curve on the chipset front, unlike the video drivers for on-board audio and graphics, which rarely seem to get updates. But something new like this shouldn't get orphaned.

Message 4 of 14
Johnyman
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

I never had a good experience with WiFi on mainboard. I tried AC9260, and then AX200 on Asrock Taichi Z370. They never worked as expected, as least with Netgear R8500, and now with Netgear RAX120. However, all AX200 clients on my laptops worked very well. Never saw a single issue of connectivity. The only issue was speed performance, which was later resolved by switching to an older driver from Intel. 

Message 5 of 14
NOiSEA
Guide

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

The AX200 do not have connectivity issues -just the speed drop issue where it drops to less than 1% of normal speeds. You don’t see the speed drop right away - usually takes about 2 hours - sometimes more.

If you are having to use an older driver , are you even able to get the 500-600Mbps speeds that you would normally get? If not then I don’t see a point in using an ancient driver.
Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 6 of 14
Johnyman
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

Yes it can still achieve 900Mbps. You might want to read my post here. https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Routers-with-WiFi-6-AX/Speed-issues-with-RAX120-as-AP/

Message 7 of 14

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz


@NOiSEA wrote:

If not then I don’t see a point in using an ancient driver.

 


Because that is how to get it to work. Newest is not always best.

 

@Johnyman has come up with something that I was rummaging around for in my memory. (See earlier reference to Intel.)  Several people had trouble in the early days of this technology and fixed it by playing around with Intel drivers.

 

Search - NETGEAR Communities – intel ax drivers

 

Maybe we are seeing another case of motherboard makers not delivering drivers that are best obtained from the chipset supplier.

 

Message 8 of 14
NOiSEA
Guide

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

I’ll try the 21.20.0.5 Driver you recommend for AX200 and report back.
Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 9 of 14
dcinca
Apprentice

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

I had the similar problem.

It's caused by the driver of AX200

Use the Killer AX1650 beta drive, https://support.killernetworking.com/software/ 

install the Killer Control Center

How?

Method:https://blog.csdn.net/u014390186/article/details/103423636

It's in Chinese, but a lot of pictures to show how to do it, I think it's ok to who can't read chinese.

or you can try to search the method from google.

Message 10 of 14
NOiSEA
Guide

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

My solution is that I created a .bat that I mapped to a macro key on my keyboard to quickly disable and then re-enable my wifi adapter.

Whenever my speed drops, I quickly hit the key and it fixes it before I even get dropped from a game or call or chat or whatever I’m doing. Its not ideal And its immensely annoying but its all I can do until Intel and Netgear get their acts together.
Message 11 of 14
avtella
Prodigy

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

You do know Killer just reuses drivers from Intel, but yeah you can use the beta drives as they’re just Intel stock drivers. I would however definitely not install the Killer Control Center software it’s snake oil and has cause more people issues than good. The software is Killer’s only real product as the cards and drivers are the same as standard Intel 9260/AX200 or Qualcomm 6174A parts.
Message 12 of 14
NOiSEA
Guide

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

Yeah I definitely wouldn’t install software from a company in a country that requires developers to share encryption keys and backdoors with the government. You don’t have to convince me.
Message 13 of 14
Boraz
Aspirant

Re: RAX120 does not work with AX200 160Mhz

Were you able to resolve this? I'm having the same issue with the TP-LINK PCI ax200 wifi adapter and the RAX120 router in AX mode. My desktop PC connects to the 5G network, seems to work, I do a Speedtest, and after it hits around 850-900Mb/s the connection drops to almost zero. Then I have to do the same workaround you mentioned, with disable/re-enable the device. It's super frustrating as this is the only reason I bought this router.
Model: RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
Message 14 of 14
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