Atheros Qualcomm QCA9377 802.11 Compatibility Issues?

[N0SFERATU]

I purchased a new laptop - came with a "fast" UM-MIMO 802.11AC Card. Spec: Atheros Qualcomm QCA9377.

The problem I'm having is that the wifi is incredibly slow. I've got FiOS 50mbps and my other laptop usually clocks around 55mpbs up/down. Both laptops have an AC wifi card, but the other one is Intel. I'm thinking that there is a compatibility issue with this Qualcomm and my Actiontec FiOS router. I've installed the latest driver - 11.0.0.558 with no luck.

I called FiOS and asked about compatibility, but they pointed out that my other AC-enabled laptop seems to work fine when connected, so it's probably the card. I have updated the actiontec to the latest driver/firmware.

An note I forgot about: I can get upload speeds of around 40 Mbps with the Atheros. So the only thing that is slow is the download.

In researching this, I noticed a lot of product reviews with laptops that have this wifi card - many complaining of slow speeds. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks


If I plug the laptop into the ethernet port, I get 60+ mbps.

 

[bill001g]

It would more likely be a issue with the driver in the PC and not the router.

Still that is why there are standards for wireless to ensure compatibility. If for example your router does not support 802.11ac or maybe it just does not support mu-mimo they will negotiate something the both do support. That is why you can take a extremely old 802.11b device and connect to the newest router.....unless the person configuring the routers was smart and turn off support of old crap.

It could be a poor design of the laptop, the antenna placement is critical. It also could be some silly bug in the laptop or driver for qualcomm chip.

Worst case most laptops you can replace the internal wireless card with a intel one.

 

[Josh_24]

I purchased a new laptop - came with a "fast" UM-MIMO 802.11AC Card. Spec: Atheros Qualcomm QCA9377.

The problem I'm having is that the wifi is incredibly slow. I've got FiOS 50mbps and my other laptop usually clocks around 55mpbs up/down. Both laptops have an AC wifi card, but the other one is Intel. I'm thinking that there is a compatibility issue with this Qualcomm and my Actiontec FiOS router. I've installed the latest driver - 11.0.0.558 with no luck.

I called FiOS and asked about compatibility, but they pointed out that my other AC-enabled laptop seems to work fine when connected, so it's probably the card. I have updated the actiontec to the latest driver/firmware.

An note I forgot about: I can get upload speeds of around 40 Mbps with the Atheros. So the only thing that is slow is the download.

In researching this, I noticed a lot of product reviews with laptops that have this wifi card - many complaining of slow speeds. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks


If I plug the laptop into the ethernet port, I get 60+ mbps.

Have you found a solution? I am having a very similar problem. As well as my internet connectivity randomly cutting out, only turning the wifi on and off does the trick. I also have an actiontec FiOS router.

 

[HokieZ98]

No idea what's going on really. I've tried 3 things, none work great (one not at all which is the most puzzling).

Speed on other laptops - 50Mbps down, 50 Up
Speed on Acer E5 with the QCA9377-802 - 6 down, about 40 up
Plugged straight into the router with an ethernet cable - 50/50

If I plug a second router (only a/b, it's old), I get 10 down, 10 up
If I change the settings in the router to b/g compatabiltiy mode, I get 10/10
If I disable the QCA9377, add as second wireless adapter via usb (b/g/n compatible), I have the same problem and speeds (only ~6Mbps down)

Anybody able to explain that?

 

[HokieZ98]

Possible solution that looks to be working - disable WMM in your routers advanced wifi settings. I'm up to what's likely full speed (getting 30Mbps down, but kids are streaming at the same time)

 

[goathair]

Possible solution that looks to be working - disable WMM in your routers advanced wifi settings. I'm up to what's likely full speed (getting 30Mbps down, but kids are streaming at the same time)

I have nearly the same setup as you (same wireless-AC card, Verizon FIOS, etc.) and had the same exact issue. I disabled WMM in the Actiontec router settings as you mentioned and boom - everything is better. Thank you!

 

[Mike_140]

I don't know whether others on this forum are quoting in Mbit/s or MB/s ? However, i was using my Acer lapop with an Atheros QCA9377 with a dlink dir-859 ac1750 router. I just bought the laptop and have to admit i didnt do a lot of research into how wireless ac achieves it's speeds. After doing some reading I began to realize that it uses the 3 antenna's on my router to create 3 streams. Then I began to realize that the NIC card also has to support 3 streams.

I was connecting at 433Mbit/s according to networking and sharing center on Windows 10. This obviously showed I was connecting through only one stream. After intensive google searching I finally found a website (not Acer's as I couldnt find anything on their website) that implied that the Atheros QCA9377 supports only a single stream. So I don't know if this is what is causing the "apparent" slow speeds for others. But it appears that I can't get 867Mbit/S or 1.3 GBit/s through my router as a result of the Atheros card only supporting a single stream. It would appear the theoretical maximum of this card is 433Mbit/s divided by 8 bits/byte = 54.125 Megabytes/sec. When you consider all the factors that can degrade signal, its unlikely you will get faster than 45 megabytes/second with this card. I achieve speeds betweem 30-40megabytes /second on my gigabit LAN.

 

[BlinkenLights]

Possible solution that looks to be working - disable WMM in your routers advanced wifi settings. I'm up to what's likely full speed (getting 30Mbps down, but kids are streaming at the same time)

That fixed it for me also. Thank you so much.

 

[Ian_77]

Possible solution that looks to be working - disable WMM in your routers advanced wifi settings. I'm up to what's likely full speed (getting 30Mbps down, but kids are streaming at the same time)

That fixed it for me also. Thank you so much.

This was perfect. I have an Acer laptop that I had a wifi card changed under warranty and was about to buy a new router from Verizon when I read this. BOOM. Also read that DLink routers come with this feature disabled. I was wondering why all other connections I used worked except the Verizon.