[SOLVED] Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter only ~300mbps ?

[gabecz]

hi
i have a lenovo 130-15ast with a pcie wifi/bluetooth mentioned in the title.
i understand it should have maximum speed of 600mbps.
however while i can open fast.com on my mac i see 500mbps (as my internet speed is indeed 500mbps) when i do the same on the lenovo, the speed only goes up to 300mbps.
the reason i don't use cable, is that the ethernet on the laptop is only fast ethernet.
i have a gigabit ethernet usb adapter, but for whatever reason if i download / test with full speed, it craps itself the only solution is to unplug and plug back in the adapter.
i would be OK with either fixing the dongle-problem, or to make the wifi go up to its full speed instead of 'only' 300mbps.
my router is an asus rt-ax82u both 2.4 and 5ghz in smart connect mode enabled. i disabled 802.11b i'm using wpa2-personal.

i didn't do any magic on the lenovo that i use for server just a standard installation no external / 3rd party driver or anything.
that is:
cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION_ID="24.04"
VERSION="24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat)"
VERSION_CODENAME=noble
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
UBUNTU_CODENAME=noble
LOGO=ubuntu-logo
-------------------------
uname -a
Linux MYHOSTNAME 6.8.0-71-generic #71-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Jul 22 16:52:38 UTC 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
-------------------------
lspci (relevant line):
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 31)

lshw -C network (only the wifi adapter info here)
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wlp2s0
version: 31
serial: 00:f4:8d:d1:e3:45
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=6.8.0-71-generic firmware=WLAN.TF.2.1-00021-QCARMSWP-1 ip=192.168.0.4 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
resources: irq:43 memory:f0000000-f01fffff

 

[cruisetung]

QCA9377 peak connection speed is only 433Mbps

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/technology/wi-fi/qca9377

==

Maybe look like this, but you need to open your laptop to verify the connector.

https://www.amazon.com/-/zh_TW/Deal4GO-QCNFA435-QCA9377-802-11ac-Qualcomm/dp/B082TMBX6D

if you want to upgrade, you have to replace the card with a card with the same connector - NGFF M2 E or A Key

=

A USB wifi adapter will be easier to deal with
https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi

 

[bill001g]

I should not be surprised I guess that the laptop only has 100mbps. Lenovo for whatever stupid reason did this even when every other brand used gigabit or even 2.5gbit.
I am not sure if they have current models that they do this with. What is even more strange many come with USB 3 ports which are faster.

You are kinda stuck I suspect. The USB devices should work well but they are of course much more complex since there are 2 levels of device drivers involved.

You can look to replace the wifi card but I am unsure if anything will actually be faster. It all depends on if lenovo are being idiots again and you only have a single antenna. The wifi chip on the card you have only supports 1 antenna but if you have 2 in the laptop then you could replace it with a card that has 2.

To a point I am surprised you get 300mbps. Most time you only get about 1/2 that or less with a wifi card like yours.

Key here is don't stress to much over speedtest numbers. You only need high bandwidth if you are doing lots of downloading of very large files. In general the average family can easily use just 100mbps internet plan combined. Things like netflix 4k movies only use about 30mbps. So you can have 3 people watching different movies, other surfing the web and playing online games and still have no issue. It is only if you want to download something like microsoft flight simulator where it will save significant time to have a faster connection.

 

[gabecz]

thanks. in fact i do need it to move large raw audio files. a lot.
so it'd be great to be able to get the full speed i pay for to my isp.
well all in all and bottom line is, that i will not be able to achieve 500mbps with this card, and it would be a waste of effort to find a faster wifi card that is in fact compatible.

but like i said the gigabit usb3 ethernet adapter works but dies when going up to 500mbps. i'm 99% sure it worked well with my previous linux build. so i may have set up something wrong. beats me what for it's a plug and play network card and i'm sure i didn't do any fancy stuff to make it work last time. (plug it in. the end)

the adapter is good i'm sure because when i plug it in to another computer with windows on it, it can do max speed no problem.

that in mind, i shold focus on making the usb3 adapter work well.

though ubuntu 24.04.3 does weird stuff must add. for one why does it go to sleep at all when it's called SERVER. oh well. i keep on playing with it until i get it right.

i'd ditch the laptop i have 2-3 other old models in hand but its cpu's tdp is 15W and that's hard to beat...

 

[gabecz]

okay so it was either the dongle being bad, or the cable.
then without thinking i remembered i used cat5 when i installed things around... for a very simple reason. or two. 1: i didn't need that fast connection back then. and 2: i didn't have anything else but cat5.
now i'm testing it with cat6. so far it seems to go with full blast.
as it 100% of the times died out whenever i started even as small as a 100mb transfer, and now i could move over a gb no interruption.
it seems like the interruption/dead link was beacuse of the limits of cat5.
Problem solved. i think. as much as i like the idea of wireless i'll stick to cable for now.