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WiFi 6E Problems - RAXE500
I've recently configured my Netgear RAXE500 router and experiencing issues with very slow speeds and low signal with Wi-Fi 6E and I'm unable to authenticate with WPA3-Personal using the Intel AX210 m...
Thank you to all that replied to my original post!
plemans comments regarding FCC restrictions..."In terms of speeds, its an issue with LPI (low-power indoor) and the basic usage of how 6ghz works. Like 2.4ghz can penetrate further and though more materials than 5ghz, the 5ghz can do more than 6ghz.
As I understand it, the FCC's Low Power Indoor designation for 6GHz is not intended to mean lower power (signal) than existing (2.4GHz / 5GHz) indoor home devices. The LPI designation is a way to differentiate home use from outdoor commercial applications (such as Outdoor AP's or Point-to-Point devices, Emergency systems). If you look at the LPI power restrictions for the 6GHz band, they're identical to the current 5GHz designations, so I do not believe that should be a factor here..
6GHz Low-Power (indoor only)
Maximum Conducted Power: 24 (dBm)
Maximum EIRP: 30 (dBm)
Maximum Spectral Density EIRP: 17 (dBm\MHz)
My AX210 Antenna is about 20 feet in line of sight of the access point (indoors), so the only material it has to go through is the air. In addition to that, the 6GHz band is specifically advertised as "Reduce congestion and interference". If 20' of air with no other 6GHz devices is considered congestion or interference for a wireless device, I don't know what to say to that.
If I'm wrong, and the FCC is removing some restriction on transmit power, does that mean Wi-Fi 6E devices can be updated with firmware, or would that require new hardware?
Here are some quotes from the literature on the box and website advertising the RAXE500 and WiFi 6E. None of these statements would indicate to a consumer the 6GHz band on the RAXE500 (or WiFi 6E in general) is designed to be lower power/signal and/or slower than 5GHz.
RAXE500 Box
"Recommended for a 5-6 bedroom home" - (I think this was supposed to say tent-home, or a homeless encampment, perhaps)
Under "WiFi 6-Expanded":
"Dedicated WiFi for new devices"
"Smoothest & fastest streaming, gaming & video conferencing"
"Enjoy top speeds for all your devices"
Under "Cutting Edge Performance":
"New 6GHz WiFi Band** - Enjoy faster speed and less congestion with over 200% more available spectrum than dual-band (5GHz & 2.4GHz) WiFi alone."
The ** says "Clients must support 6GHz band (WiFi 6E)."
"Ultra Low Latency - Very few devices on the 6GHz band means lower latency for gaming and real-time traffic".
"More High Bandwidth WiFi Channels - Blazing fast speed and less interference with 3X more high-bandwidth 160Mhz WiFi channels."
RAXE500 Product Page
Under "WiFi 6E Stands Alone - Open an Exclusive New Path to the Future of WiFi"
"Reduce congestion and interference"
RAXE500 Data Sheet - RAXE500_DS_11Mar21_tcm148-119463.pdf
Under "Wifi 6E: Expanding WiFi with New Speeds"
"Nighthawk® RAXE500 Tri-Band WiFi 6E Router is powered by WiFi 6E, delivering the smoothest and fastest streaming, eLearning,
video conferencing, and gaming experience. Now you can have all the power of 6th generation WiFi plus expanded speeds, connections, and capacity with a completely new and wider 6GHz WiFi band that has up to 3.5X more WiFi channels."
"Plus, eight high-performance antennas on the router amplify WiFi signals for maximized range and reliable coverage for a 5-6 bedroom home."
Introducing WiFi 6E, delivering the smoothest and fastest streaming, eLearning, video conferencing, and gaming experience. Now you can have all the power of 6th-generation WiFi plus expanded speeds, connections, and capacity thanks to a completely new and wider 6GHz WiFi band with more WiFi channels.
New 6GHz WiFi Band—Exclusive access for only devices supporting the new 6GHz band means less congestion and faster speed
More Spectrum—Up to 200% more spectrum than dual band (2.4GHz & 5GHz) WiFi to WiFi 6E devices
More High-Bandwidth WiFi Channels—Up to 3.5X more high-bandwidth 160MHz WiFi channels for applications such as your
8K video streaming
Ultra-Low Latency—Less traffic on the 6GHz band gives you lower latency for your AR/VR gaming and other WiFi-intense applications
Cutting-Edge WPA3 Security—The latest WiFi security protocol to keep your family and network safe
Under WiFi Range - Faster and expanded coverage throughout your home and for all your devices.
ULTIMATE RANGE - WiFi coverage throughout very large homes
[1] Is the LAG connection between the router and the CM1100 modem working well?
Yes, is seems to be working just fine. My Internet bandwidth is capped at 1gbps dows so I cannot tell if it's truly using all of the bandwidth, but thus far I have not had any disconnects or loss of the link aggregation on either the modem or router side.
[2] Is the LAG connection between the router and the Synology DS420+ working well? Is the performance of the NAS noticeably improved as a result?
Yes here as well, the Synology NAS created the bond without issue and the connection has not dropped once. When using the 2.5GBPS LAN port the write speed sits around 1890mbps, so that is quite an improvement over the 900ish mbps I was receiving before aggregation with a single LAN. I do have 2 Samsung 980 Pro NVMe drives in the NAS in addition to the 4x 10tb IronWolfs so that may be helping with write speeds too. Wireless is slower than that, as expected, but still not bad on the 5GHz AX.
Thus far have no issues or complaints with the speed of the Wired connection or the Wi-Fi 2.4/5GHz AX bands. My only issue here is with the 6GHz band signal/performance and being unable to connect securely.
avtellaregarding WPA / SAE....
According to the latest (1/28/2021) WiFi Alliance certification for the AX210, it's listed as supporting WPA3-Personal and WPA3-Enterprise with Windows 10, version 2004 on the 6GHz band. Intel also has the AX210 listed on it's list of devices that support WPA3 on Windows 10
WPA3-Personal:
Intel® Wireless adapters fully support WPA3-Personal using Windows® 10 May 2019 version 1903 Update or later, and Wi-Fi driver 21.10.X or later.
WPA3-Enterprise:
Intel® Wireless adapters fully support WPA3-Enterprise using Windows® 10 May 2020 version 2004 Update or later, and Wi-Fi driver 21.90.3.X or later.
According to Microsoft, they have supported WPA3-SAE as of WDI 0.1.1.8.
Running "netsh wlan show wirelesscapabilities" (Windows 10 Pro 10.0.19043 Build 19043 21H1) shows both SAE and OWE are supported. SAE is supported in Linux, but I have the same authentication issue there as well (OWE works).
WDI Version (Windows) : 0.1.1.9
WDI Version (IHV) : 0.1.1.9
SAE Authentication : Supported
OWE Authentication : Supported
Here's an output of the connection log, it does show Wireless security succeeded then all of a sudden Wireless security stops. Strange, but does seem to indicate some sort of Windows / Driver issue.
As I type this, I just got notification Intel officially released driver 22.40.0.7 for the AX210. When it installed through Windows Update a few days ago I got a BSOD and had to roll back, but about to try it again and hope for the best....
Update: This is the third time attempting to post this today, so all of my formatting and links are gone (sorry)... If anyone did see my original reply, I did install the latest Intel driver 22.40.0.7 that I was notified about today. No blue screens this time but still unable to connect to WPA3.
As of 06/14/21 - Wi-Fi 6E WPA3 is still not functional on Intel AX210 driver 22.60.0.6 and Windows 10 21H1 19043.1055
Start to look more and more like a Windows 10 issue.
WPA3 on 6Ghz has extra requirements... It requires Hash to Element (H2E).
Everything you listed only refers to the standard WPA3, thats already available on most AX devices and does not require H2E on 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz. H2E is not available in Windows 10 1903... You need 21H1.
Once 21H1 was available, I updated my AX210 to the 22.50 drivers(available as an optional update in Win10), and tried to set up the 6GHz band for WPA3. It still would not work. Honestly, at this point I'm ready to take engineers from Netgear, Intel and Microsoft and lock them in a room until they can come up with a consensus of what still needs updating.
Currently everything is waiting on Microsoft to release an official update to eeryone to enable WPA3 on the 6GHz band.
The AX210's hardware as well as drivers are largely ready, but the windows update for it is still locked behind one of their unstable branches where if you join that branch, you wil need to reinstall windows to leave it.
Razor512 Your point is valid and I can confirm the longer the coax cable, the worse the signal gets (as is the case with the 2.4 and 5ghz bands too). Directly connected (no coax), the stock antennas from the AX210, 12" antennas, and two of the antennas from a ASUS GT-AX11000 directly connected without any coax cable all show poor snr 20' away from the router with no walls, other devices, to interfere. Out of those antenna types, the 12" antennas had the best SNR, as expected. I can mirror this signal issue with my Samsung Galaxy S21 as well. It is constantly between 2-3 'bars' while the 2.4/5GHz are at 5. That is 10-20' away from the router, if I go into another room through a wall it gets even worse. If you look at the mbps (transfer rate) under the connection properties, it will say something like 670/29 (d/u) which is FAR lower speed than the 5GHz band at 2129/1441, and even worse than 2.4Ghz when it comes to upstream. Sometimes 6GHz feels saucy and goes to 1953/160. Changing channels and the other settings seem to have no effect. Why would Wi-Fi 6E be slower AND have more interference? Definitely not how it's advertised. Even if I could get WPA3 to work with other devices, it's still effectively useless if it's going to be that much slower than 5GHz.
avtella I'm running Windows 21H1 10.0.19043 (KB5001330) and can confirm Wi-Fi 6E WPA3 does not work with that build or the latest Windows Developers Preview release (I forget the build #) using Intel driver 22.40.0.7. Both Intel and Netgear support told me I need to wait for Windows 21H1 (which I have), but neither have provided and proof that that will actually resolve the issue. AX210 Wi-Fi 6E WPA3 authentication also fails on Ubuntu 20.10 / Kernel 5.11 as well, which does clearly support Hash-to-Element, and I have confirmed it shows to be enabled.
When asking Intel which OS / Build they tested the AX210 WPA3 Wi-Fi 6E on when receiving the Wi-Fi Alliance Certification they "are unable to provide that information.".
I have yet to see any working examples of WPA3 on Wi-Fi 6E on any device other than the Samsung Galaxy S21 running Android.
Since Intel was unwilling (or couldn't) provide any information as to how this was tested, it would be very helpful if Netgear can provide any sort of information as to how they successfully tested Wi-Fi 6E WPA3 internally , so we can attempt to replicate it.
- You need 21H1 and a new Intel Driver… 22.40.07 does not support H2E… You need 22.50.
Linux kernel supporting H2E doesn’t mean much if the Intel firmware that’s included with it doesn’t. You likely need to manually update the firmware or wait for next iteration.
