How to connect with Wlan5 and Wlan6 devices at the same time

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Hi, I´m running Openwrt 24.20.4 on a GL.iNet GL-MT6000 Flint 2.

The Flint 2 support 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz with a MediaTek chip:

radio0 2,4 GHz MT7986 802.11 ax/b/g/n

radio1 5GHz MT7986 802.11ac/ax/n

I have configured Wlan following the documentation here and first everything works well. Later I noticed, that nearly each of my devices connects well to the router, but not my Lenovo Ideapad 510. The Lenovo comes with an Intel AC- 3165 chipset. The Lenovo is able to connect with up to Wlan5, which is mode AC in OpenWrt at 5 GHz and mode N at 2,4 GHz. I was very surprised, as I have had expected backward compatibility regarding Wlan6 mode to Wlan 5. If the router is configured to mode AX which is Wlan 6, the Lenovo is not able to see the SSID. After some tests I noticed, that the Lenovo just can see the SSID and get WiFi connection, when I configure mode N and mode AC on OpenWrt which means, that each other more modern device connects with lower Wlan5 speed instead of full Wlan6 possibilities.

So I bought a TP-Link Archer T2U Plus with Realtek chipset and after installing the driver, I´ve got a radio2. I configured the TP-Link adapter with mode AC (Wlan5) and built-in adapter with AX (Wlan6).

After pressing Save & Apply WiFi stops working and LuCi got frozen. I just get the router up and running again by entering the device with ssh, removing the radio2 configuration sections and restart by cutting off from electricity. After that, I was able to login with LuCi and restore the last working configuration.

Before I break the configuration more times, I would be happy for any advice and ideas, how I have to configure the router, so that newer clients are connected with Wlan6 but at the same time older devices using Wlan5 are also able to connect using Wlan5.

How you are configuring your Wifi? By the way, I'm using for each frequency, 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz individual SSID's. Are you using just one SSID for different frequencies in the same lan?

Thank you very much.

1 Like
2

If in LuCi an AX-radio is set to “AX", it means "AX or lower" for connecting devices, not "only AX".

If older N or AC devices are still unhappy to connect, it is usually the wireless security config.

  • Try without WAP2+3 mixed mode.
  • Test with WPA2 + disabled mgt frame encryption.
  • Avoid the newer GCMP ciphers on WPA2.
1 Like
3

Usually you add IOT network to isolate devices from "normal" devices, and an IoT access point with reduced encryption to support those. There are even iot targetted routers that have 3rd radio that you can configure to reduce wifi standards down to wifi-b or wifi-g for even less compatible devices.

So in LuCI
Network/Wireless/ press "Add button next to ax/b/g/n radio, add a "weak" access point for IoT-s
Reducig wifi standard will reduce modern capabilities for other AP-s on same access point, eg "legacy rates" will disable short preamble and set beacons to 1Mbps speed stealing bandwidth from modern devices, so first try with reduced crypto

As previous poster said:
WPA2+3
WPA2-AES with optional management protection
Make cyphers auto and/or disable frame protection
WPA1+2 (note that TKIP encryption here can be cracked with desktop video cards)

Lenovo - is it Windows or Linux or BSD? Intel cards do DFS survey in firmware, you absolutely have to have identical country codes on both.

4

Is this replaceable?
I have an intel 6300AGN which refuses to connect to any 5ghz radio that's broadcasting AX.
Same issue as you have seen this is the intel WiFi at fault as it refuses to acknowledge the host is broadcasting a wireless protocol it's not capable of.

5

Hi, first, thank you all for your help and ideas.
Just to complete the information regarding the Lenovo: The notebook is running on Windows 11 with dualboot to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Until now, I just tested on Windows 11.

I have tried everything regarding your comments regarding radio1 at 5GHz. Nothing works, checking country codes, trying WPA3, WPA2, WPA etc., even disabling each kind of encryption. The Lenovo doesn't even see the SSID.

So regarding the reference to the operating system I booted into Linux at: It works :wink:

So looks like, it's not a hardware restriction, maybe a problem with the old Windows driver. The notebook is not any longer supported from Lenovo's side, so the driver which comes with Windows 11 is from Intel, dated from 29.02.2017 version 10.50.0.11.

I´m confused, because I also own an old Fritz!Repeater 1200AX access point, which I used for a test by including the device in the OpenWRT setup. So using the 1200AX as access point, the setup works well, even for the Lenovo connecting with Wlan5 and my mobile connecting at Wlan 6 at the same time.

6

You might try to download an up-to-date driver from Intel...

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Always do a cold boot between systems, i'd even go as far as to constrain Ubuntu into a virtual machine.

8

thank you
@hnyman sounds great, I will test and let you know
@brada4 yes, I do so to avoid unpredictable effects

9

First of all, wish you all a happy new year!
@hnyman Installing the driver following the download link solves the problem. I can confirm, that with an actual driver the Lenovo is connecting well with Wlan5 at 2,4GhZ and 5GHz, even the router is configured to AX.

I'm just wondering why the Lenovo is connecting to AVM products with the outdated driver. It's a bug or a feature?

Thank you all very much for your help! Hope the thread will also help other user with similar issues. I will mark as solved.

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Great to hear that you got it solved.

Might just be more relaxed drivers in AVM, e.g. still offering some cipher types that are deprecated from Mediatek mt76 drivers, but still used by the old driver in Lenovo.

I have learned to look at the chip/chipset manufacturers for driver updates in addition to the OEM site, which usually stops updates after some 5 years of OEM product launch.

Lenovo Ideapad 510 dates to 2016(?), so it is generally expected to be scrapped by now :wink:

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