iwlwifi: AX203 Wifi Unstable and 96% Slower vs Windows 11

[kpedersen]

(although with desktops you can generally just add a wifi card)

Indeed, though since the FreeBSD's WiFi support is still evolving, the Wifi <-> Ethernet bridge will still result in a faster speed than any WiFi card you install in the desktop (running FreeBSD). In some ways I recommend hording some wifi cards + dongles now however for when FreeBSD does gain good support, it will probably be hard to pick up this current generations of hardware in 5-10 years time.

Yeah, the USB to Ethernet is a little hit-and-miss. I have a couple of decent USB 2.0 ones but have yet to find a reliable USB 3.0

 

[mopbsd]

mopbsd I've just upgraded to 14.3-RELEASE, and I can't yet comment on stability. However, iperf3 reports 13.4 Mbits/sec up and down, which is the same as with my USB wifi dongle plugged in.

Here is the relevant part of my dmesg:

Intel(R) Wireless WiFi based driver for FreeBSD
iwlwifi0: <iwlwifi> mem 0x6001144000-0x6001147fff at device 20.3 on pci0
iwlwifi0: Detected crf-id 0x1300504, cnv-id 0x80400 wfpm id 0x80000030
iwlwifi0: PCI dev 51f0/0274, rev=0x370, rfid=0x10a100
iwlwifi0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX203
iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-so-a0-hr-b0-89.ucode'
iwlwifi0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.0.2.42
iwl-debug-yoyo.bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/iwl-debug-yoyo.bin either
iwl-debug-yoyo.bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/iwl-debug-yoyo.bin either
iwl-debug-yoyo_bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/iwl-debug-yoyo_bin either
iwl_debug_yoyo_bin: could not load binary firmware /boot/firmware/iwl_debug_yoyo_bin either
iwlwifi0: loaded firmware version 89.6b44fa0b.0 so-a0-hr-b0-89.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
iwlwifi0: WFPM_UMAC_PD_NOTIFICATION: 0x20
iwlwifi0: WFPM_LMAC2_PD_NOTIFICATION: 0x1f
iwlwifi0: WFPM_AUTH_KEY_0: 0x90
iwlwifi0: CNVI_SCU_SEQ_DATA_DW9: 0x10
iwlwifi0: RFIm is deactivated, reason = 4
iwlwifi0: Detected RF HR B3, rfid=0x10a100
iwlwifi0: base HW address: [removed]

Any idea why I am not getting the speeds you are?

Hmm, it looks like you have the same firmware that I'm running. There are lots more details with ifconfig -v wlan0 list sta and list scan - they'll show base station information, which can be informative. I *do* have issues with getting 5ghz networks when they present 2.4 and 5ghz (tp-link decos broadcast that 2.4 has 'high speed' which messes things up). I had to create a guest network that was 5ghz only and put my Framework on that to get 200+ speeds.
Depending on your appetite for digging into details, it's worth perusing the freebsd-wireless mail list...

freebsd-wireless@FreeBSD.org

They are really helpful there, and your input would be incredibly useful as this support gets developed for FreeBSD 15.

If you want to paste the output of ifconfig -v wlan0 here (feel free to sanitise IPs and SSIDs if you like, of course) I can happily comment on things I've learnt about whilst testing. Although I'm no developer

 

[pollito_cpc]

mopbsd I set up a guest network with only 5GHz but same thing unfortunately.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I've subscribed to the mailing list - probably the first one for 20 years - so I'll ask on there.