AX201 Issues on HP Spectre x360

[bshaoulian]

Picked up an HP Spectre x360 15 about a month ago - have been having some issues with the wireless adapter (Intel AX201) lately that are pretty annoying. There are three main issues:

1. When the PC wakes from sleep, it often takes about a minute for the PC to reconnect to the wireless network, seems like a power-saving issue but I have been unable to find any meaningful power-saving settings to toggle to fix this.

2. Even when the PC manages to wake up and reconnect to the wireless network, sometimes it is ONLY able to reconnect to the 2.4 GHz band and not the 5 GHz band, no matter how many times I try to switch back and forth. Issue resolves itself if I restart the PC, or sometimes if I just ignore it and let it go back to sleep and it might connect to the 5 GHz band. I have found that if I go into Device Manager and disable and then re-enable the wireless adapter, it will allow me to reconnect to the 5GHz band...

3. Lastly, the wireless speeds (when the PC is connected to either 2.4/5) are not as good as they could be, not even close. On my desktop (hard-wired Ethernet), I can get ~240 Mbps down, my phone (wifi - 5GHz) ~110 Mbps down, and then when I try the Spectre (wifi - 5GHz) I might get ~50 Mbps down if I'm lucky. This is really unacceptable for a new Wifi 6 device....

So far, I have tried: updating to the latest Intel drivers (22.40.0.7), made sure my router settings were on WPA2, have looked in device manager for any power settings, looked into HP Command Center network booster, and maybe a few other things --- to no avail....

Could really use some assistance here, I REALLY like this laptop, but these issues are really making it troublesome.

Thanks!

[Khun_Doug]

You didn't indicate what type of wireless network you are attempting to connect to. Since you are describing wireless trouble, that is likely to be an important part of the solution.

You also mentioned using a network booster. There have been instances where additional software that makes adjustments to the network actually cause trouble. Have you tried disabling or removing the network booster?

Do you have any type of firewall besides Windows firewall installed?

Does HP have their own power management package that defines a special power management profile for the laptop?

[bshaoulian]

Hi,

I am primarily trying to connect to my home 5GHz network (I believe WPA-2), with the 2.4Ghz as a back-up.

I have disabled this HP network booster plug-in to no avail. Along with other suggested HP applications that may be affected the wireless connection. No other firewall, just Windows Security. 

In terms of power management profiles, that is part of the HP command center (that houses the Network booster), and that has been removed as well, just in case, no luck.

[Khun_Doug]

Bshaolian,

I am attaching a link to the Intel System Support Utility. Please download and run the utility (it is not an install). Keep the default settings, click Scan, then Next, and finally save the results as a file. Please reply back and attach the saved file. There is no sensitive data in the report, only hardware and OS information. Also, I dislike asking for the tag or serial number of your laptop, but HP's driver and software page needs the serial number to know what software to list. I want to look over the software they are providing.

The Intel SSI can be found here: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility-for-Windows-

[bshaoulian]

Hi,

Attached is the SSU info, and the S/N is 5CD11265S5

Thanks!

[Khun_Doug]

Bshaoulian,

The SSU report shows a 5 GHz connection via channel 36. But the signal level reported isn't so great. I suspect that is going to be the cause of the poor throughput. The SSU reports shows a receive rate AND transmit rate of 173.3 Mbps.

Would you please describe the network you are connecting to? For example, what type of router or access point are you connecting to? How close are you to the wireless device? What type of obstructions are between the laptop and the wireless device?

As far as the hardware issues with problems after sleep mode, I am curious if you have used the Dell support assistant to update the Dell drivers? The Dell support page shows several updates for the chipset as recent as January 2021. And the latest driver for the wireless is version 22.20.x.x, but you have version 22.40.x.x. The driver installed is not that released by HP, and could also be a factor.

[bshaoulian]

What are the receive and transmit rate supposed to indicate? Does that mean that I *should* be getting 173 Mbps?

The router (modem router combo) is sitting about 5 ft from the laptop in the same room, no obstructions. 

Do you recommend that I downgrade to drivers that have been deliberately released by HP?

[Khun_Doug]

Bshaoulian,

The transmit and receive numbers indicate how good the signal strength is between the laptop and the wireless device. As an example, I have an AX capable router in a spare room, out of sight. 20 feet away I have an AX capable desktop PC that regularly sees those numbers well over 1200. I have an AC capable laptop that has a maximum of about 440 and gets full signal when halfway across the house. If you are only 5 feet away from the router and getting such weak rates, you may well have a problem with the wireless adapter in that laptop. It would depend on the type of router you have, and looking at the router is something that needs to factored in. But considering all other problems you are having with that laptop, it might be wise to speak with HP. One of the things they are likely to suggest is using only their driver. I would suggest downloading the HP driver, uninstalling the Intel driver, and then installing the one released by HP.

What type of router or access point are you using? How many other devices are connecting and sharing the wireless? And do you have any neighbors where you live that have wireless strong enough that your devices are detecting it?

[bshaoulian]

I have since downgraded to their suggested wireless adapter driver, with no change. I have tried to speak with HP support but so far, they have only been able to provide basic support, such as remoting in the computer to make sure all drivers are up to date....really no actual troubleshooting.

The modem/router is a Technicolor TC8715D, which after looking it up, seems to only support up to 802.11n Dual band - could that be the issue behind the speed problem? I am the only one connecting to this router, so at most only 3 devices at a time (phone, laptop, desktop).

I can't help but feel like this is an Intel driver issue after seeing seemingly countless posts regarding connectivity and speed issues with this wireless adapter in the HP or Surface laptops.

[Khun_Doug]

Bshaoulian,

I cannot really comment on the Technicolor router. What I can say is it is unlikely you will get much more throughput on only an N connection than you already are seeing. I don't like helping people spend their money, but you may want to consider getting some type of wireless router or access point that supports at least 5 GHz AC. And since the laptop has an AX adapter, you might want to consider an AX router. The one thing that is likely to happen as time moves forward is that people will be using more and more bandwidth. There are any number of good 5 GHz routers, and you can find several models that support wireless AX. You are not likely to need one of the models with 6 GHz support at this time. Those can be a bit costly.

If you do decide to add a wireless router, I would also suggest disabling the wireless on the Technicolor router. Having two wireless routers so close may cause a bit of band contention.

[bshaoulian]

I agree that it makes sense to get an AX capable router for the future, but I'm still wondering about those transmit and receive rates from the SSU run that showed over 170 mbps speeds. Is that not truly indicative of the type of download speed I might be able to get in the current configuration?

In addition, the main concern has been the fact that the wireless adapter CONSTANTLY loses connection if the computer goes to sleep - that is not the router's fault, as no other device is affected. It's clearly a sw/driver issue with the wireless adapter in the laptop as I can regain connection by simply restarting or disabling/re-enabling in device manager. I have seen countless posts about this issue with this adapter - do you have any suggestions?

[Khun_Doug]

Bshaoulian,

The signal strength reported in the SSU is the signal strength between the PC/laptop and the wireless device it connects to. Those numbers are not bytes per second or MBps, but bits per second Mbps. You are really interested in the amount of data you are transferring to/from Internet, so you are more concerned with bytes. In general, it takes 10 bits of wireless traffic for 1 byte of real data. Additionally, it gets a little confusing with wireless N speeds because N can use both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, splitting the data between the two bands. That's the reason your mobile phone is showing N traffic on the 5 GHz band. I am including a link to a table that lists wireless modes (b/g/n/a/ac ...) and their speeds: https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-do-all-those-80211ac-wireless-speeds-mean-431

In short, the Technicolor just doesn't have the wireless bandwidth to fully saturate your Internet connection. You will need something that can go beyond 802.11n for that. And another advantage of an external wireless device is something that can support MU-MIMO, and provide more wireless signal in your living space.

As for the laptop losing connection when it goes into sleep mode, I believe you will need to get a solution from HP. It almost reads as though the OS isn't waking up the Wi-Fi adapter after power management puts the laptop into sleep mode, and that easily can be a hardware issue. You more or less verified this theory by using Device Manager to disable and then enable the device. That process would force the OS to initialize the device, as though it were just plugged in. It's possible a BIOS/firmware update may resolve this issue. And just so you know, power management and sleep mode have been the root cause of many headaches. This is just one example.

[bshaoulian]

Ok update on the matter. I went out and got an AX capable modem/router (Netgear AX2700) and replaced the current modem/router. Immediately checked to see if the speeds were improved - now I'm getting the same 230+ Mbps down on the laptop wifi (as I was getting on a wired connection on a separate desktop). Moreover, I have not yet experienced a dropout in wireless connection on the computer in question - and I've tried to let it sleep for 30 minutes, an hour, and even tried to force the failure by switching back and forth airplane mode - which previously could kill the connection. It's only been about half a day so I'm not calling it a win just yet, but I'm optimistic. 

In addition, I re-ran SSU and seemingly got much much more adequate results (attached) - showing 240 Mbps rx rate and 1200 Mbps tx rate, with a 99% signal strength.

Thought I should share this new information in case this might have been the solution - but still monitoring behavior for a few more days.

[Khun_Doug]

Bshaoulian,

I'm glad the new router seems to righted whatever was wrong. I have the Asus RT-AX88U, and it also works quite well. So that's at least two AX capable routers that appear to work properly with the AX200/AX201 adapters. Enjoy being cord free with full throughput!