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Anyone know if Intel 9260 adapters (2x2 160mhz wave 2) are gimped on non-Intel CPUs?

I'm only able to hit 1.3gbps (half-duplex 650mbps effective) on a Ryzen laptop (HP Envy x360 15z) and Ryzen desktop (X470 MSI Carbon Pro) that both have Intel 9260's. AP and Clients were tested in the same room. I'm expecting 1.7gbps (approximatedly 850mbps real transfer speed). Windows 10 indicates 1.7gbps upon initial connection to the AP then 3-5 seconds later it goes down to 1.3gbps permanently.

Despite having a 4x4 MU-MIMO VHT 160Mhz AP (Ubiquity NanoHD latest firmware 4.0.21.9965) running VHT160 through 5Ghz DFS channels 100-128 with 0 interference. Also tried 160mhz on channels 36-64 and still 1.3gbps. I only have two clients connected to the 5ghz antenna, the aforementioned ryzen laptop and desktop.

The weird thing is that I'm able to get 1.3gbps so 160mhz seems to be partially working. It's almost like I'm getting a 120mhz width channel (80mhz+40mhz)

P.S. WiFi survey wasn't running at the same time as iperf3 benchmark from a wired desktop to wireless laptop (iperf3 -c 192.168.0.x -t 30 -P 16)

Proof: WiFi survey with no interference

So far I have a couple of theories:

  1. Intel drivers detect a non-intel CPU so they lock it to 1.3gbps because I wouldn't put it past Intel's anti-competitive practices

  2. something with the AP's NanoHD firmware/throughput, but I doubt it since the RF scan revealed the 160mhz width band was working

  3. iperf3 settings? iperf3 with no flags is around 400mbps, flag -P 16 was about 600-650mbps. I don't know that any other settings would help

Update: new iperf3 settings helped some as well as a RAMDisk tranfer test

iperf3 -c laptop -n 5G -u -b 0

Desktop -> 750Mbps (avg) -> Laptop

confirmed by:

NAS (3GB file) -> ~745Mbps (avg) -> RAMDisk on Laptop

as for laptop to desktop well...

iperf3 -c desktop -n 5G -u -b 0

Laptop -> ranges 150/200/300Mbps (upload is a mess) -> Desktop

The upload from laptop to my wired desktop is a variable mess. Where as wired desktop to laptop transfer is as smooth as butter. I'll save the upload problem for a later question.

For now it seems I'm able to do a maximum of half-duplex 750Mbps which is approximatedly 1.5Gbps wireless link speed. Which Windows 10 doesn't report and still displays as 1.3Gbps link even though I'm hitting 750Mbps.

So close yet so far...

It seems I'm either hitting 8x2 256-QAM 3/4 (1.5Gbps) or if somehows Windows is correct I'm hitting 750Mbps transfer speed at 7x2 64-QAM 5/6 which I doubt. It's a 400ns guard interval router so I doubt it's 9x2 256-QAM 5/6 @ 800ns (1.5Gbps).

Sigh, I'm so close to the full speed! The only other clue I have is this report from my NanoHD:

You may ignore the "(High, likely a problem)" which always appears on high throughputs. 114 (100,+1) seems to be shorthand for ch100-128 (160mhz). I wonder if I should ignore this metric as well since it may be inaccurate? :/

106%

Tek
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    although the card & scans report no noise/interference, it doesn't mean that there is no interference in the 5.8Ghz band. WiFi cards only "see" noise / interference from other WiFi devices, not cameras, baby monitors, quad-copter remotes, radar, satellites ect ect ect. the only way to definitively tell is with a spectrum analyzer. these speeds are actually pretty decent for most RF environments... – Tim_Stewart Mar 19 '19 at 17:56
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    It is very difficult to authoritatively diagnose wifi issues because there are so many factors involved. Beyond hardware there are multitude environmental issues both transient and consistent. The weather plays a factor as well. – music2myear Mar 19 '19 at 17:59
  • "_gimped_"?... would you care to re-word that? – Attie Mar 19 '19 at 18:47
  • @Tim_Stewart Great point! There is an RF scanner exactly for that purpose built in the AP. I do have a tiny bit of interference in 32-64 which nothing higher than -86db. In channels 100-128 nothing higher than -96db. I'll post the RF scanning results when I have time later today – Tek Mar 19 '19 at 19:08
  • @Attie basically #1 at the end of my post – Tek Mar 19 '19 at 19:08
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    Given that your Intel 9260 client is a 2x2 160MHz device, getting a 1300Mbps PHY rate means you're doing MCS 7x2 instead of 9x2. That is, you're falling back to 64QAM instead of 256QAM. Without a lot of insider knowledge of both the AP and client radios, it's hard to know why you're not sticking to 9x2. It might be interesting to set your AP to the 80MHz channel width and see if you can maintain MCS 9x2 in that situation. – Spiff Mar 19 '19 at 20:24
  • By the way, which device was the iperf server (iperf -s) and which was the iperf client (iperf -c)? – Spiff Mar 19 '19 at 21:24
  • @Spiff Thank you for this! I've added more info at the bottom of my question. I'm able to obtain 9x2 on 80Mhz. Windows reports 866.7. The only weird thing is iperf and file transfers are around 680Mbps. But that can't be right?! Half-duplex included that'd be 1300 mbps on VHT80 which I don't think is even possible? You did nail it on the head with this one, interesting indeed... – Tek Mar 20 '19 at 07:50
  • It just hit me the only way it's doing 680Mbps is if somehow it was doing 7x2 (coincidence?!) on VHT160 @ 1300mbps (Windows is reporting it wrong?) but this really doesn't make sense. I set it to VHT80 on my WAP (confirmed with wifi scanner) channels 100 through 112 which is 80Mhz width... – Tek Mar 20 '19 at 08:07
  • @Tim_Stewart By the way, I learned the NanoHD does report interference from anything not just WiFi after contacting UniFi support (probably because it's enterprise hardware). Here's a screenshot. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hopNDyPUOuycN_1DNJwLfvJIsJNhi9Tw/view – Tek Mar 21 '19 at 00:47
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    Very cool if true, am I missing something? I don't see any indication in your screenshot of background noise vs. WiFi AP's? It looks like that's showing you roughly 20DBm of noise. The background floor is usually -100DBm (depending on firmware, manufacturer etc) – Tim_Stewart Mar 21 '19 at 16:07
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    @Tim_Stewart That's because it turns off WiFi broadcasting while the scan is performing. When it detects interference it doesn't show WiFi SSID but the interference itself from any device. It looks like this (taken from web) https://i.imgur.com/Cfte4Fx.png . You don't see anything on mine because my 5Ghz is dead and clear from any interference all the way down to -80 dBm on my 5Ghz 160Mhz channels – Tek Mar 21 '19 at 17:02

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