Wanted: USB wireless with 11n functionality

Yes I just dug up an RT5592 and no 802.11n
Code: 
usbconfig
ugen1.5: <Ralink 802.11 n WLAN> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (450mA)

ifconfig -vv wlan2
wlan2: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    ether 7c:dd:90:7e:b3:07
    inet 192.168.1.115 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
    groups: wlan
    ssid apu2ap channel 36 (5180 MHz 11a) bssid 4c:5e:0c:11:65:38
    regdomain FCC country US anywhere -ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i -wps
    -tsn privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF
    TKIP 2:128-bit powersavemode OFF powersavesleep 100 txpower 17
    txpowmax 50.0 -dotd rtsthreshold 2346 fragthreshold 2346 bmiss 7
    11a     ucast NONE    mgmt  6 Mb/s mcast  6 Mb/s maxretry 6
    11b     ucast NONE    mgmt  1 Mb/s mcast  1 Mb/s maxretry 6
    11g     ucast NONE    mgmt  1 Mb/s mcast  1 Mb/s maxretry 6
    scanvalid 60 -bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250
    roam:11a     rssi    7dBm rate 12 Mb/s
    roam:11b     rssi    7dBm rate  1 Mb/s
    roam:11g     rssi    7dBm rate  5 Mb/s
    -pureg protmode CTS -ht -htcompat -ampdu ampdulimit 64k
    ampdudensity 8 -amsdu -shortgi htprotmode RTSCTS -puren -smps -rifs
    -stbc -ldpc -vht -vht40 -vht80 -vht80p80 -vht160 wme -burst -dwds
    roaming MANUAL bintval 100
    AC_BE cwmin  3 cwmax 10 aifs  2 txopLimit  64 -acm ack
          cwmin  4 cwmax 10 aifs  3 txopLimit   0 -acm
    AC_BK cwmin  4 cwmax 10 aifs  7 txopLimit   0 -acm ack
          cwmin  4 cwmax 10 aifs  7 txopLimit   0 -acm
    AC_VI cwmin  3 cwmax  4 aifs  2 txopLimit  94 -acm ack
          cwmin  3 cwmax  4 aifs  2 txopLimit  94 -acm
    AC_VO cwmin  2 cwmax  3 aifs  2 txopLimit  47 -acm ack
          cwmin  2 cwmax  3 aifs  2 txopLimit  47 -acm
    media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/54Mbps mode 11a
    status: associated
    nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
 
Top center half circle mount is good for M.2 cards. That is standard. Those offset half circle ones are bastards.
What you really have to worry about is this: Does your machine use a BIOS whitelist for hardware.
If not then there are two Atheros M.2 cards that work. I will have to dig them up for model numbers.
Pretty sure they were AR94xx
 
Here is the card:
QCNFA222 with AR9462
Notice there are two variants. One with a single notch like above and one with dual notches:
www.ebay.com

Dell Atheros QCNFA222 802.11a/b/g/n M.2 BT4 WiFi WLAN Network Card 4K380 04K380 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Dell Atheros QCNFA222 802.11a/b/g/n M.2 BT4 WiFi WLAN Network Card 4K380 04K380 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

Most Wireless M.2 cards that I have seen are the same length= 2242
 
Phishfry said:
What you really have to worry about is this: Does your machine use a BIOS whitelist for hardware.
Click to expand...

I may just have to test it. There's some info I found suggesting the whitelists ended with the T450, but that is far from certain.

Phishfry said:
Notice there are two variants. One with a single notch like above and one with dual notches:
www.ebay.com

Dell Atheros QCNFA222 802.11a/b/g/n M.2 BT4 WiFi WLAN Network Card 4K380 04K380 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Dell Atheros QCNFA222 802.11a/b/g/n M.2 BT4 WiFi WLAN Network Card 4K380 04K380 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com
Click to expand...

Excellent. For 6 dollars I'm willing to take a chance. Thanks for this suggestion.
 
Ordered the Dell. We'll know on Saturday. :cool:

On a related note, does anyone have a tested/proven 11n USB stick they're using, even if it's large form factor?
 
phalange said:
Ordered the Dell. We'll know on Saturday. :cool:

On a related note, does anyone have a tested/proven 11n USB stick they're using, even if it's large form factor?
Click to expand...

Not at the moment but i could test the WN-722N v1 (WN-721N should be the same chipset just without external antenna) in the next couple of days. Just need to get back home. At the moment there is a good 500km between me and the device and telepatic experiments have disappointed me quite a lot in the past ;)

At some point i will probably try a bunch of hardware though. There is a wifi mesh on my TODO list and i wonder if i could use FreeBSD. I am curious whats my chances of finding a highpowered 5Ghz dongle/card that works with at least N standard (is there any kind of AC support in FreeBSD yet?).
 
ekvz said:
Not at the moment but i could test the WN-722N in the next couple of days. Just need to get back home. At the moment there is a good 500km between me and the device and telepatic experiments have disappointed me quite a lot in the past ;)

At some point i will probably try a bunch of hardware though. There is a wifi mesh on my TODO list and i wonder if i could use FreeBSD. I am curious whats my chances of finding a highpowered 5Ghz dongle/card that works with at least N standard (is there any kind of AC support in FreeBSD yet?).
Click to expand...

I focused all my brain power on the laptop, but the speed didn't change. I think it actually slowed down a little. I may stick with hardware after all.

To the 11ac question, the answer is no, but the project of getting it has been blessed and will at least see some activity:


FreeBSD To Sponsor Work For 802.11ac Support - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com www.phoronix.com
 
phalange said:
I focused all my brain power on the laptop, but the speed didn't change. I think it actually slowed down a little. I may stick with hardware after all.
Click to expand...

I agree, all those sinus waves tend to make me dizzy also.

phalange said:
To the 11ac question, the answer is no, but the project of getting it has been blessed and will at least see some activity:

FreeBSD To Sponsor Work For 802.11ac Support - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com www.phoronix.com
Click to expand...

Nice! It's kinda crazy how AC only really got any adoption during the last couple years when it is really from 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Protocol). Maybe we should skip it and go straight for AY? I am amazed right now how many weird wifi standards there are (which are probably supported just about nowhere - which OS/hardware would let me do something like AD, AF or even infrared wifi!?)
 
ekvz said:
I agree, all those sinus waves tend to make me dizzy also.
Nice! It's kinda crazy how AC only really got any adoption during the last couple years when it is really from 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Protocol). Maybe we should skip it and go straight for AY? I am amazed right now how many weird wifi standards there are (which are probably supported just about nowhere - which OS/hardware would let me do something like AD, AF or even infrared wifi!?)
Click to expand...

Yeah, looking at the amount of work still to go to get 11ac there, it's hard to imagine the hours it will take. But as an end user it's seriously painful to be saddled with connection protocols from 15 years ago.

Personally I'd prefer a subset of wireless hardware with great support over a mountain of hardware with mediocre support, but it looks like 11ac isn't so compartmental? Maybe the bulk of the work will trickle into many drivers.
 
phalange said:
Yeah, looking at the amount of work still to go to get 11ac there, it's hard to imagine the hours it will take. But as an end user it's seriously painful to be saddled with connection protocols from 15 years ago.

Personally I'd prefer a subset of wireless hardware with great support over a mountain of hardware with mediocre support, but it looks like 11ac isn't so compartmental? Maybe the bulk of the work will trickle into many drivers.
Click to expand...

I consider myself somewhat techsavy but wireless drivers are sadly a bit over my head. I've patched a little here or there (go away powersaving!) but as for writing one from scratch or even just adding support for a new protocol i wouldn't know where to start otherwise i would probably already have contributed a bit. My biggest gripe with open source wireless drivers is DFS/TPC (to use the 5Ghz 1W channels in the EU) or rather the lack of it. I would take this over AC, AX, AY, ... any day (of course both would be best!). Even Linux implements a "usable" form only for a single lonely driver (ath10k) and still nobody really knows if it's actually compliant since there is no reference to test it against. So if i were to deploy it i'd have to pray it actually works and doesn't interfere with some weather radar or whatever (which would likely make people angry at me...).
 
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