Intel Wi_Fi 6 AX201 slowness FIPS

[striderdeano]

We use Dell Latitude platform clients in our enterprise domain w/AX201 cards. While accessing our Cisco AP's we have implement FIPS (Toggled the “Enable Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance for this network” option under 802.11 settings.) The specs state this card is FIPS compliant (Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 Module 130293). However, download/upload speeds are less than 1Mbps.

Manufacturer: Intel Corporation

Description: Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz

Driver version: 22.20.0.7

Protocol: Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac)

Security type: WPA2-Enterprise

The newest drivers didn't help, forcing the driver to AC mode didn't help, disabling FIPS allowed download/uploads speeds to the expected 40-80Mbps but disabling is not an option per Cyber.

Any ideas?

thank in advance,

Dean

[Victor_G_Intel]

Hello striderdeano,

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

We appreciate the information you have provided, please allow us to do further research on our end in regards to your situation, we will update the thread as soon as possible.

Regards,

Victor G. 

Intel Technical Support Technician 

[Victor_G_Intel]

Hello striderdeano,

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.

We appreciate your cooperation and effort. After analyzing the information provided, we realized that in order to continue with our investigation we will need the following logs and information:

We understand that you guys were forced to change to the Qualcomm AX709 adapter to addressed the FIPS issue; however, in order to continue if you guys still have one of the systems affected by the issue, can you please provide the sniffer logs of it (one with FIPS enabled, and another one with FIPS disabled) using over the air capture tools such as Wireshark?

Did you guys set up a Cisco WLC via Cisco AP AIR-AP2802I-B-K9 in your enterprise network? If so, what is the model and SW version of the Cisco WLC?

How are you guys measuring throughput (e.g. iPerf, SpeedTest, Chariot)?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Victor G.

Intel Technical Support Technician  

[Forsi]

why you don't want to relize that is the card issue nothing els, just do an update ar somthing to fix this wifi cards.

I have 2 brand new laptop 1dell, 1 hp with same wifi card, and both of them facing the same issue.

[Victor_G_Intel]

Hello striderdeano,

Were you able to check the previous post?  

Please let me know if you need further assistance.  

Best regards,

Victor G. 

Intel Technical Support Technician

[N_MD]

I wonder has Intel came out any fixes for this FIPS slow connection on AX201, AX210. It is very wide spread for us and many Federal agencies using FIPS. It is interesting for Intel to specs this as FIPS while it does not really work with Win 10 FIPS mode 

[Jolly99]

As per  https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000007084/wireless/legacy-intel-wireless-products.html

and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-magazine/ff847520(v=msdn.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

Intel is doing AES-CCMP-128 encryption needed for WPA2 in software, at the Windows libraries level,  if FIPS 140-2 mode is enabled.

Software encryption is the reason for this low throughput.

Victor G., can you please, confirm it internally and come back to us?

[Fahim_Shakil]

sorry for this late response but this victor (mod) kept **bleep**ting throughout the conversation.. didn't come up with a solution and it's been a year since he posted!! admire your modesty and patience, striderdeano.. i wonder if victor is a real person or those replies were auto generated from a bot?! what a shame intel.....

[td47]

Hello, I have been getting slow access to pages on my browser for a while, and have tried the latest diver for my AX201. There is NO FIPS setting for it on my ASUS laptop (as it seems that the AX201 is AUTOMATICALLY spec'd to support it.

HOWEVER, I found that if I changed an advanced setting for the AX201 (In Device Manager):

MIMO Power Save Mode from Auto to No SMPS it made a big improvement.

NOTE: this was in a home environment, and NOT a corporate/FIPS environment, so those type of users MIGHT find it only gives a minor benefit. However, since most folks in home/office environments keep their laptops plugged in, there is nothing to lose by turning it off.

My testing so far with this has been positive, so worth a go.