Very slow download speeds with intel wifi 6 ax200

[sid39]

I'm using a new Acer laptop with Intel wifi 6 ax200 adapter. Until a few days ago, I used to get really good speeds but now the download speed seems bottlenecked, the upload speed is fine but not as high as it used to be. 

I have attached a screenshot testing the speeds.

I have already tried rolling back the driver but it did not make a difference.

[Sebastian_M_Intel]

Hello sid39, 

Thank you for posting on the Intel® communities.   

So we can have more information from your system, please provide the following: 

1. Run the Intel® System Support Utility (Intel® SSU) and attach the report generated:  

• Open the application, check the "Everything" box, and click on "Scan" to see the system and device information. By default, Intel® SSU will take you to the "Summary View".   
• Click on the menu where it says "Summary" to change to "Detailed View".   
• To save your scan, click on "Next", then "Save".   
• Use the option under the reply window to attach the report to the thread (Drag and drop here or browse files to attach).  

2. What is the brand and model number of your router/modem? 

3. Does this issue happen on different networks? 

4. Is this the original adapter that came pre-installed in your system or have you changed/installed a new adapter recently? 

5. Do you recall making any changes before this problem started? 

Regards, 

Sebastian M  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[sid39]

1. I have attached the result below as a text file.

2. Intel WiFi 6 AX200 160Mhz

3. The issue is rather specific, on the 2.4 GHz band I get good speeds. The issue is with the 5Ghz band and only the download speed, the upload speed is as expected.

4. This is the original adapter that came with the laptop.

5. I'm not sure but I think this started after I did the Windows 10 20H2 update from Acers update channel( I think its acers update channel because the drivers are one or two versions behind the official ones and I got the update late).

So far I have tried rolling back the driver, installing intel's official driver, removing the driver and letting windows find and install the optimal one, but no change in the result.

Right now I'm running the 21.90.3.2 version of the driver provided by acer in their support and drivers site.

[Tani63]

Hi Sebastian, I've just bought an HP Omen laptop (4Q6E3EA#AKE) with this "famous" wifi card Ax200. It works the same as a lot of people complaint here in this forum. I do not believe it is a matter of my router/laptop manufacturer/driver, as it works with all the tried drivers in the same shameful way....100 Mbps down and approx 80 Mbps up, when my iPhone 12 Pro Max works with 650 Mbps down and 600 Mbps up. 

I put initially Win 10 Pro (21H2) on it and worked slow. I upgraded to WIn 11 Pro (21H2) and it works in the same way. I followed all the recommendations from this thread, and nothing. I've changed drivers with ones from Intel, then from HP....same behaviour.

Pls kindly do not accuse anybody else than Intel for this failure. I attach for your review the report.

We are all waiting for a driver to solve the issue or to give us a compatible replacement, even only for ac and not ax.

My router is a Tp_link Deco X20 which is wifi 6 native.

Thanks for your collaboration!

Tani

[Sebastian_M_Intel]

Hello sid39,  

Thank you for your reply. 

Please try the following: 

1. Can you please tell me what router/modem brand and model? This is the device that communicates between the internet and the devices in your home that connect to the internet.  

2. Have you tried restarting your router/modem? Follow the router manufacturer or your system provider for instructions. 

3. Also, check with the router support for the correct settings in order to work with an AX wireless card. 

4. What is your position from your computer to the router? Have you tried getting closer to it and see if the speed increases? Please keep in mind that the 5GHz band is faster but the signal does not get as far as the 2.4GHz band.  

5. Set the Recommended Settings for 802.11ax Connectivity: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000057574/network-and-i-o.html  

6. You mentioned that the issue could have started after a Windows update, have you tried rolling back to a previous version where the issue did not exist? 

7. Just for testing purposes, follow these steps to the letter and perform a clean install of your wireless drivers: 

Step 1: Download and save the drivers on your computer: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000022173/network-and-io/wireless.html  

• Get the latest system-specific driver from your computer manufacturer (OEM) support 
• Download the latest Wi-Fi Driver from the Intel® Wireless support. 

Wi-Fi: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/30057/Windows-10-Wi-Fi-Drivers-for-Intel-Wireless-Adapters  

Bluetooth: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/30061/Intel-Wireless-Bluetooth-for-Windows-10  

Note: Try both (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) and just for testing use both versions also (OEM and Intel) 

Step 2: Uninstall the Wi-Fi driver. 

1. Uninstall your Wi-Fi driver. 
   1. Go to Device Manager. 
   2. Expand the Network Adapters category. 
   3. Right-click your Intel Wireless Adapter and choose to uninstall it. 
   4. Make sure to select the option to Delete the driver software for this device. 
   5. Repeat steps A through D until the option to Delete the driver software for this device is greyed out. 

2. Restart your computer. 

Step 3: Driver installation. 

Locate the drivers you downloaded back in Step 1. Run as administrator, and follow the wizard to completion. To Run as administrator right-click over the file you downloaded and select the option to Run as administrator.  

Regards,  

Sebastian M  

Intel Customer Support Technician   

Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, Intel® is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of Intel or any of its products is implied. 

[Sebastian_M_Intel]

Hello sid39,  

Were you able to check the previous post and follow our recommendations? Please let me know if you need more assistance.   

Regards,  

Sebastian M  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[sid39]

Hello Sebastian

1. Its a modem provided by my ISP, Jio. I have gone through the modems configuration but there seems to be no option to increase compatibility for wifi 6 cards. However, as I mentioned earlier it used to work fine and even now, the upload speeds are almost as good as they used to be. 

2. I have tried restarting the modem

3. No specific settings for working with AX cards

4. Its within a few meters ( 4 at most ). No theres no speed increase even if I get any closer.

5. I tried this but no difference

6. I do think rolling back might fix this, but sadly I don't have the old windows files anymore. I do have a recovery disk that I made while using the older version but I would need to clean install windows, I suppose, which is not a good solution for me.

7. Regarding uninstalling drivers, I noticed that even if I check the remove drivers box, after scanning for hardware changes/restarting the drivers are automatically installed. So I installed the new drivers right after uninstalling the old ones. The version numbers that are listed have changed accordingly so I suppose it worked. I tried the same with both OEM and Intel drivers, also both Bluetooth and WiFi drivers were reinstalled. 

[sid39]

I kind of forgot to mention, the results haven't improved, and in my opinion the OEM drivers work relatively better ( speeds between 15 to 20 Mbps for download and 100+ Mbps for upload ). The intel drivers have download speeds < 10Mbps and upload speeds in 80Mbps range.

[Sebastian_M_Intel]

Hello sid39,  

Thank you for your reply.

It seems that your modem is not compatible with W-Fi 6 (AX). Please try the following and let us know about the outcome:

1. Try using the recommended settings for 802.11ac Connectivity: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000024678/network-and-io/wireless.html
2. Can you check if the authentication is set to WPA 2 or WPA 3? Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Network and Sharing Center >  Set up a new connection or network > Select Manually connect to a wireless network in the Set Up a Connection or Network wizard > Next > enter your network's name > test with WPA 2 and WPA 3.
3. Additionally, when you try the clean install of the wireless drivers, make sure that you are not connected to an ethernet cable, and repeat the uninstall steps until the e option to Delete the driver software for this device is greyed out: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000022173/network-and-io/wireless.html

Regards,  

Sebastian M 

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[sid39]

I'm pretty convinced that the card should be ax compatible so long as intel WiFi AX200 cards are. 

I did try the clean installing driver exactly as shown in the video with OEM drivers. Also changed the compatibility to 802.11ac rather than ax. Still the same result, around 91 mbps while uploading and 22 while downloading. No other device is using the wifi while testing and my plan speed is 100 mbps download and upload.

The 2.4 Ghz band still works fine. 

[Sebastian_M_Intel]

Hello sid39,   

Thanks for the update. 

Based on what we have done, it seems that the problem can be due to the Windows update, or perhaps a specific issue with your laptop. Please try the following: 

• Can you confirm if you changed the WPA authentication? I will recommend you using WPA2 in this case.  
• If changing the authentication does not work, then you may want to consider doing an Operating System (OS) reinstallation. 
• If nothing of the above works, you should then check with your system manufacturer (OEM) as this can be a hardware issue or a limitation in your laptop. 

Regards,   

Sebastian M  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[sid39]

I forgot to mention, the authentication is WPA2/PSK in the router config.

I also think an OS reinstall might be the fix for this, I will consider that. 

This is not a hardware limitation as it used to work fine. I've posted a question on OEM forums but not much activity there. 

Anyway, since nothing else works, I'll try a reinstall when I have time.

[sid39 · Accepted solution]

Hey, well as a last resort I tried installing an older version of the OEM driver and it seems to work. It could be that the new driver has some compatibility problem with my windows 10.

ver: 21.70.06 works fine ( OEM ) 

[n_scott_pearson]

What release of Windows 10 are you running? Really old releases (before 1903) are no longer tested and may not work with the latest drivers.

...S

[sid39]

I have mentioned that this problem arose after the latest windows update from Acer(20H2). 

This update came out sometime at the start of December and 21.90.3.2(latest OEM driver for the card) was installed along with the update. This is the faulty driver(the latest official driver from intel is also performing bad)

Currently, I rolled back to 21.70.06 which was probably the driver I used before the update. This driver works and gives me good speeds(90+ Mbps on a 100Mbps plan).

[MSStateDawg]

Where did you get that driver?

[Sebastian_M_Intel]

Hello sid39,  

Thank you for your response. 

Based on what you mentioned, we believe that you should report this problem to Acer* as this behavior happens in a similar way with the latest Intel generic and OEM driver. Chances are that you are missing some customizations or you may need some specific firmware update for this PC. 

As you marked the thread as solved, we will proceed to close this inquiry. If you have any additional questions, please submit a new post and we will gladly assist you.   

Regards,  

Sebastian M  

Intel Customer Support Technician  

[AndersDK]

Hi there

I have read this forum, and i also says, there is somekind of a bug in the AX200.

Here is my test results: http://bolignet.speedtestcustom.com/result/51a93370-7360-11eb-82c6-2f8dccac0135

I have normal Upload speed.
But the Download is 500-600mb.

Im using the newest driver 22.20.0.6 By Intel.
Have tryed using 80HZ and 160HZ, running with WPA2 right now.

Im using Unifi 6 LR model.
Wifi says, im connected to 2.1 Gbps.
As mention, my upload speed is normal.
But download is only the half

I have tryed some others drivers, but the result is the same

Any ideas?

[JonasDaWi]

Hey, I also have this problem. Really slow download speeds only with this card on Windows 10. Other Wifi Cards work fine.

[Louie_A]

Hey @sid39 , I am facing the same issue and have tried almost everything mentioned in this thread. Could you please walk me through the process of reverting back to the older OEM driver? 

My ISP is Asianet and I have a modem provided by the ISP with 2.5Ghz band. My (HP) laptop has the same WiFi card as yours (Intel Wifi 6 AX200 160Mhz). I have a 125 Mbps plan but it gets restricted to 10-20 mbps. All the other devices connected to this network seems to be getting 80+ mbps speed. My issues seems to be with just this specific WiFi card. 

It would be very helpful if you could mail me the process for fixing this issue.

<<< Email address removed. Folks use Personal Message feature of Communities for communications >>>

[Zoley]

What I experienced is that the data transfer speeds (ex: file copy via network) plummet in windows 10 once the basic system default driver get updated to any other version. That includes an updated one released with the 2022 may service pack that force installs itself if only the old default is installed (attached picture).  I have bought and tested several different cards when I first discovered the issue as I thought the card is somehow defective or incompatible with my router (have tested a few different ones after a while too), dived into settings on all sides (router/client/other computer) and then I ran into the advice above (under Sebastian_M_Intel, 12-15-2020, step 2) elsewhere and decided to remove all the updated, supposedly better drivers to check what do I get with the default one. To my surprise I instantly got "full speed" (60-80 MB/s) based on the link quality (which was always 800-866 Mbps) and when I updated to any other driver I hardly seen more than 8MB/s, which is unacceptable. I wonder what is that definitive difference between that w10 default driver vs. any other updated version that results in a 10fold speed difference. By the way the presence or the version of the bluetooth driver doesn't affect this.

You guys might want to look into this and fix it, because it's not only the ax200 that is affected, I replaced my ac-9260 because of this to find the ax200 just as bad.