Cant get 160Mhz to work on Archer AX6600 (AX90)
I have spent a lot of hours trying to get the 5Ghz-2 to work on 160Mhz but with no result. I have almost tried every DPS channel available with the configuration set to 160Mhz and 802.11ax only yet it always stuck at 40Mhz and give me a maximum speed of 576mbps.
I would really appreciate it if someone can help solve this as I need to make a decision either to keep or return the device.
Please note that I have tested with a PC equipped with Intel AX200, S21 Ultra, and Tab S7.
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Hi,
Just a note. If you set the second 5 GHz band to 160 MHz channel width, then the router will be occupying channels 100(DFS) through 128(DFS).
While in Canada the use of channels 120, 124, 128 is not permitted at all, in Europe (incl. UK) these channels can actually be used, under the condition that the router must first monitor these channels for a period of at least 10 minutes for radar signals and only if it didn't detect any radar signals during the whole 10 minutes is it allowed to start broadcasting.
So, after switching the AX90's second 5 GHz band to 160 MHz and clicking "save" you will need to wait full 10 minutes before the SSID will appear and allow you to connect your client devices.
By the way, for all other DFS channels the regulations mandate a radar scan (officially called the "Channel Availability Check" or "CAC") to be run for 60 seconds, which is apparently short enough so that most users don't even notice it.
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Regarding the Huawei AX3 router you mentioned.
I happen to own it's sister model from "Honor" (which was a brand name of Huawei at the time) and I was very frustrated when I found out that they decided to disallow the use of channels 120, 124, 128 completely, despite my router being the official European version, which would have allowed those channels to be used.
By the way. The reason for me preferring the use of channels 100 through 128 over channels 36 through 64 for running a 160 MHz wide channel is that the non-DFS channels 36 through 48 may often be congested by other people's cheap dual-band routers that don't support DFS.
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The only upside is that it's at least a second 80mhz radio, so it still supports better streams between devices than a dual band.
Its not tp-link's tech at fault. I've tested 4 different wifi6 routers in the past month and the AX6600 routers all had same issue. Was upgrading from my Chinese Tenda AC2000 dual band that maxed out at 866Mbps.
Had an AX4860 chipset dual band router at first, the 2ghz band connected at full speed 600Mbps, as well as 5ghz (low band) connected at 160mhz, 2.4Gbps with my laptop's AX200 card. (also tried an AX6000 router, had alot of rebooting issues so i brought it back.)
Now that's nice and all having it connect at those speeds, but that full 160mhz BW takes up most of that band's channels, competing with smaller bandwidth devices at the same time.
The other two routers, including tp-link's that i still have now, and a competitor's over priced model that resembles a black Star Wars shuttle 😉 that i brought back, are both AX6600 chipsets. It's the chipset in general that's designed to only work if there's no weather radar in the area.
IF the 160mhz bandwidth ran in the lower 5ghz band, it would work fine like the routers with wifi6 chipsets made AX6000 and earlier, to Chipsets AX11000 on (multi 160mhz bands). But they designed it to not interfere with older low band 5ghz devices by adding a second higher band 5ghz radio. Unfortunately, that band is also used by some governments for weather radar, and they take precedence over our routers. So since a 160mhz channel needs almost all the channels of that band to work, and some of those channels are used up by government frequencies (excluding U.S. AFAIK) only 80-20mhz channels are available.
Sorry for the long winded post, trying to relay what I've learned into text lol, this graph explains it way better...
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Even if I'm connected on 5g_2 at 80Mhz, should I be able to get a wi fi connection to devices greater than 1.2Gbps?
When I'm in same room with routers, I get 2.4Gbps connection with Huawei but only 1.2 max with Tp Link (On 5g_2).
I was expecting it to be the same on both routers but more stable on TP Link when further away.
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The Archer AX90's second 5 GHz band (5G_2) is specified at 4804 Mbps.
These 4804 Mbps could be utilized by a client device that supports the AX (Wi-Fi 6) standard, 160 MHz channel width and can handle 4 streams (which requires 4 antennas).
I think at present there is no AX client device on the market that has more than 2 antennas. So, utilizing the AX90 5G_2 band's full speed for a single Wi-Fi connection is currently not possible.
The Intel AX200/210 Wi-Fi card supports the AX standard, 160 MHz channel width and has 2 antennas. Therefore it can achieve 2402 Mbps theoretical speed.
If this card connects at 80 MHz channel width, then the speed will be halved to 1201 Mbps.
If you go to the Huawei router's Advanced Wi-Fi Settings (under "More Functions" -> "Wi-Fi Settings") and manually limit Bandwidth to 80 MHz, then you should also get 1.2 Gbps connection speed.
Anyway, if you set the AX90 5G_2 to 160 MHz and when the Wi-Fi comes back on after waiting 10 minutes (European version) and you still don't get the 2.4 Gbps connection speed, then perhaps the router did indeed detect radar signals on channels 120, 124, 128 and thus is only running at 80 MHz, despite the GUI telling you it is set to 160 MHz. You could check this by running a Wi-Fi scanner software on a client device that supports 160 MHz.
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All sorted finally.
Had to hard reset router and set it up via web GUI instead of App or else same results.
I also disabled the 2.4Ghz and 1st 5Ghz band. I set the 2nd 5Ghz band to AX only.
I will use the Huawei router to service the rest of the house for those particular bands. (Main driver for me was the 2.5Gbps Ethernet port to purchase the AX90). The rest of the family don't need the higher bandwidth. Kids on tablets for YouTube, Roblox, Minecraft etc and Mrs on laptop for Youtube and web browsing.
I don't want to re enable the other 2 bands just in case.
Now results are:
This is from a 1.14Gps ISP connection. ISP modem only has 1Gbps Ethernet port but should receive a new modem with 2.5Gbps port in 2022.
Link speeds are now Circa 2Gbps up and down. Much better than Huawei router!
My issue now is that why did it take your help from here and a lot of manual tinkering to get it to work? Why couldn't the technicians advise accordingly?
(Edit: I took the risk and enabled the other 2 bands after making a backup. Will report back in new post)
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As soon as i enabled the 1st 5Ghz band again, the 160Mhz band stopped working and dropped to 80Mhz on the second 5Ghz band resulting in max connection of 1201Mbps up and down.
The 2.4Ghz band is working fine in parallel.
Is this how it should be working?
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That's strange, they are two different sets of channel bands altogether.
My Canadian version doesn't list all of the channels needed (in the same band) to even create a 160mhz channel.
If I disable the first 5ghz band, I still don't get 160mhz on the high band.
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Yup, only way to get a stable connection above 1.2 Gbps is to disable all bands apart from the 2nd 5Ghz.
My devices became locked at 1.2Gbps when I had the 2.4Ghz enabled. Strangely it worked for half a day but then stopped working at 160Mhz. What a bummer....
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Sorry for jumping up. Do you mean the connection speed will be limited to 1.2Gbps if you enable 5G-1 or 2.4G network on the router? As mentioned by XDA_EdgarPoe, these three networks should not influence each other.
Can I confirm what are channels they are using if you run a Wi-Fi analyzer to review the three networks? What is the device you are testing the wireless speed with the router? What's the model of the adapter on it if it is a computer?
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