Intel AX210 doesn’t see 6GHz band

[HHH003]

I have a Mediatek WiFi 6e card and it works fine with my WiFi 6E router. I wanted to try the Intel AX210 card, but it refuses to see the 6GHz band with the latest Intel driver. The default Windows 11 driver will show the 6GHz band, but the entered network password is always shown as being incorrect…
I go back to the Mediatek 6E card and everything works perfectly again.
My computer is a desktop (Lenovo P620) and I use a PCIe card for the wireless. The computer can be optioned with an Intel AX210 card.
Before I return this card, I want to see if a fix is available.

[RandyT_Intel]

Hello HHH03,

One of our engineers has reviewed your case and would like to inform you that we will be reaching out to you via email to provide further assistance and work towards a solution.

Thank you for your understanding. 

Randy T. 

Intel Customer Support Technician 

[olson_canadian]

I have an intel ax210 wifi card that I purchased and installed in my 2022 Asus TUF Dash F15 laptop with a 12th gen core i5 CPU in it, but I haven't been able to get my 6 GHz wifi network to be seen with this adapter with ANY driver newer than 22.45.1.1. 5 GHz is never consistent in it's connection speeds with this ax210 card either. With the original intel wifi 6 card it was fast and stable.

I have another ax210 card in an older Dell 2-in-1 laptop that was also not connecting to 6 GHz until a recent driver update. It consistently connects at 2400 up and down. The 3rd ax210 I have is on a PCI-e card and is installed in an much older desktop computer with an intel core i7-7700k CPU. The desktop has never had an issue my 6 GHz. I assumed that the newest device I own (the Asus laptop), should be the most compatible, but it's not and I don't know why. I have tried the adapter I installed in the Dell laptop in the Asus laptop and the issue remains the same. I've made absolutely certain that all prerequisites were met and as I mentioned earlier, the 22.45.1.1 driver did allow for 6 GHz connectivity, but it was slow and unstable. If you could help me sort this out I would be very appreciative.

Thanks!

[HHH003]

I never did find a solution. My speculation is my Lenovo P620 which was an AMD CPU had a BIOS block for 6Ghz band with Intel WiFi cards. I ended up using a Mediatek WiFi 7 chip which worked.
I also tried using Qualcomm WiFi 7 WiFi cards on the Lenovo which didn’t work at all.
Since then, my Lenovo P620 stopped working and I ended selling it on eBay for parts.

I built my own computer using an Intel CPU motherboard that uses the Intel BE200 WiFi card. It works perfectly… no fuss, just works.

I suspect something on your motherboard BIOS is blocking your newest ASUS motherboard as Intel 12th generation CPU should operate with the latest and greatest Intel WiFi cards. Perhaps an Intel BE200 WiFi 7 would work? Just speculation on my part.
I’m not sure what WiFi card was installed on your ASUS as the model’s specifications page doesn’t say which brand. It did say it came with WiFi 6.
Google suggests it’s a Mediatek chip.
So, if it’s a Mediatek chip, then perhaps you’ll need another Mediatek chip. The ASUS BIOS may have a block on Intel WiFi cards.
Remember OEM’s don’t want you to upgrade anything… they want you to buy a new model that has the latest and greatest hardware.
I’d forget about the Intel AX210 as it’s quite old technology now. If your ASUS had a Mediatek card, a WiFi 7 card such as the Mediatek MT7925/MT7927 will work fine with WiFi 6E router. I was using the MT7927 in my Lenovo when it stopped working.

[olson_canadian]

Apparently there was a mediatek adapter that could be installed in this model, but also the intel ax201ngw WiFi 6 card. It was the intel that came in mine. I just had a chat conversation with someone at Asus support (3/23/2026) and this is what he or she told me....

Clayton - I want to know if Asus did something in the UEFI/BIOS to somehow block 6 GHz networks from being seen, as the REALLY old 22.45.1.1 driver did allow 6 GHz to be seen and connected to, but those drivers were super unstable and thus not good to use full time.

Clayton - No drivers for the ax210ngw adapter after that version allow for 6 GHz on my Asus laptop, but in a old Dell 2 in 1, the adapter works great.

Chavoy_P. - Thank you for that information. I will do my best to provide you with further assistance.

Chavoy_P. - To answer your question, no. While ASUS does not officially "lock" the 6 GHz band in the FX517ZR's UEFI/BIOS, the issue you are experiencing with the Intel AX210 is a known conflict between Intel’s modern driver architecture and how your laptop reports its capabilities to the OS.

Chavoy_P. - The reason the "really old" 22.45.1.1 driver works is that it was released before Intel fully implemented strict Location Aware Regulatory (LAR) and ACPI checks.

Chavoy_P. - On modern ASUS laptops, the BIOS sends a signal (via ACPI tables) to the operating system identifying what hardware features are supported.

Chavoy_P. - Since the FX517ZR originally shipped with a Wi-Fi 6 (AX201) or MediaTek card, the BIOS may not explicitly "flag" the system as Wi-Fi 6E (6 GHz) compatible to the Windows kernel. Newer Intel drivers (post-22.45) strictly follow these BIOS flags. If the driver asks the BIOS "Is 6 GHz allowed on this platform?" and the BIOS doesn't say "Yes," the driver disables the 6 GHz radio.

Chavoy_P. - The older 22.45.1.1 driver was a "transitional" driver that often ignored these platform checks, which is why it allows the connection but remains unstable.

Chavoy_P. - To get 6 GHz working on the latest, stable drivers, you often have to bypass the software/BIOS handshake:

Chavoy_P. - Ensure you are on Windows 11. Windows 10 does not natively support the 6 GHz stack for Wi-Fi 6E, which forces the adapter into 5 GHz mode on newer drivers.

Chavoy_P. - You can try forcing Windows to recognize 6 GHz support by adding a registry key.

Chavoy_P. - Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\XXXX (where XXXX is your Intel adapter). 

Chavoy_P. - Create a DWORD (32-bit) named Is6GHzBandSupported and set the value to 1.

Chavoy_P. - Clean Install Latest Drivers: Instead of rolling back, use the Intel Driver & Support Assistant to perform a "Clean Installation" of the latest version (23.x or higher) after applying the registry tweak.

For me, the registry entry "Is6GHzBandSupported" was already there and I'm still not seeing 6 GHz networks. I am going to try the clean driver install and see what happens, but I'm about to give up on intel wireless adapters completely. Perhaps a MediaTek WiFi 7 adapter driver will not have the same need to check if 6 GHz is allowed (My router/gateway is a Unifi Dream Router 7).

[olson_canadian]

Turns out that reg key was already there. I then saw online that it apparently isn't required for Windows 11, but who knows if that's true or not. I decided to reinstall Windows 11 25H2 and load the latest driver (24.20.2.1) and setup the advanced options so that 6 GHz was the preferred frequency, but yet again I was stymied. I was in touch with Asus support again. This time I called, but as most people know, first level "support" are usually are just script readers and generally have no clue how to help people, so she escalated my issue and I'm supposed to hear back from "The next level" within a couple days. I'll believe it if/when it happens. At this point, I'm really thinking Asus did something in the UEFI/BIOS of my laptop to block 6 GHz, or at the very least there's a bug in it that won't explicitly say 6 GHz is supported and then either the UEFI, Windows 11 or the intel driver shuts the 6 GHz radio off. Fingers crossed Asus gets back to me and has something useful to tell me. When I asked intel for help awhile back, they blamed it on Asus right away and closed my support request. They couldn't be arsed to help even a little bit. Definitely think it might be time to wright them off as useless.