A6210 no AC connection , only N

[Wallou]

Hi,

My A6210 does not connect to my router in AC mode.

Only in N.

I am on Windows 10 x64.

I notice it now because i just got a 1Gb fiber connection and the bandwich is not as it should be.

This occurs only with A6210 because friends on their laptops connect in AC with the built-in wifi chip.

I tried to install latest firmware/softawre but nothing changes.

Here is a screenshot of the task manager :

Please advice.

Thanks

[TheEther]

It could be a bug in the Task Manager.  Go to Network and Sharing Control Panel and click on the blue link for your Wi-Fi network.  IIRC, this will display the connection status and, possibly, the protocol.  If you are running Windows 10, then I believe the protocol is also displayed in Settings->Wi-Fi, somewhere.

If you find that the adapter is truly using only N, then go to the driver settings and see if there are any options to use AC.

[VE6CGX]

What is your router? Is it set up to use -ac mode on wireless?

[dk2463123]

I think OP has already stated that others connect as -ac so it sounds like the network is correctly set to handle the -ac protocol. This sounds like the already known and still unaddressed issue where the A6210 reports back as -n on Windows 10 even when connected to an -ac network. There is supposedly an alpha software patch floating around but this issue seems to be known already by Netgear but not resolved.

[JamesGL]

Hi  All,

Please PM me your contact info if you have issues showing incorrect mode even when connected to an AC router

JamesGL

Community Team

[erwin3791]

Hi,

nooo PM me PM me! Others have the same problem on same platform. Please provide a working driver in AC for Windows 10.

Thanks in advance

Erwin

[Wallou]

Hi

Sorry for late reply i have been on holidays for 3 weeks and be back in a few days at home.

Wherever in Windows I look it's a N WiFi connection I have.

I don't recall seeing such a parameter in the driver settings.

I have an Asus RT-AC68U router and as stated above friends get AC connection so the router is fine I think.

I am pretty sure I am in N connection because friends have way better bandwidth speed compared to what i have with my Netgear A6210.

I made tests from the same room in my house and good WiFi signal.

[Retired_Member]

I have the same issue and I would like the download to the patched version of the driver. Even if it is a PreTest version. 

[Wallou]

I come back here to give a few feedbacks after some tests i have made.

Despite seeing 802.11n in task manager , i think my a6210 is in fact connected in AC mode as i can see in the wifi network details that i am connected at 866mbits to my asus router.

But there is one thing i don't understand is why i can't go faster than 300mbits when testing my connection speed with online tools.

I read that it could be related to my a6210 running in usb2, but it is not the case.
With usbtreeviewer i see it is connected to a usb3 port.

When i connect through ethernet to my router i get speed tests above 700mbits, i have a 1Gb fiber connection.

I would expect to have better speed in wifi with the a6210.

But still i find it disturbing as 300mbits is the 802.11n max speed rate. 

Anyone can help me to go faster than 300mbit please ?

[TheEther]

TL;DR 300 Mbps is pretty normal out of a 867 Mbps Wi-Fi connection.

Unlike Ethernet, Wi-Fi link speed (the connection rate reported by Windows) and throughput (the real world, actual speed) are very different. The reason is that Wi-Fi requires a lot of overhead. A rule of thumb is to expect throughput no better than 50% of the link speed. It will frequently be worse than that. 300 is 34% of 867, which is pretty typical.

While Wi-Fi is great and convenient, if you want the best, most reliable performance, use Ethernet.