Which PCIe WiFi card works on x86 LEDE?

5100 does not have a working AP mode.
Its driven by iwldvm module and only iwlmvm supports AP mode

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iw list will show the capabilities of your driver and card. In particular, look at the supported modes.

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Many Intel wireless cards in laptop formats are intended for client mode only, and only on a single band at a time. They are "dual-band" only in that they can connect to a 2.4 GHz AP or a 5 GHz AP, but not at the same time.


Suggests that this c. 2008 card may only be 802.11a/b/g and not support 802.11n draft, depending on the specific module.

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All wireless cards (with only two(?) exceptions (AsiaRF WS3294, very few rtl8192du based USB devices (they come in three different variant, single MAC + single PHY, dual MAC + single PHY and dual MAC + dual PHY, only the first variant was relatively common)), coincidentally neither of them supported) can only tune to a single channel/ band at a time, so you always need two suitable wlan cards for (concurrent) dual-band - and avoid USB like the plague, especially for AP mode.

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Ahh...that explains it. To Ebay then...planning to order Artheros AR9280. One channel 2.4GHz is fine for guests :slight_smile:

Just one more question before I order new card: do you know if Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 support AP mode? I have one in a laptop that I can swap out...

Thanks in advance!

No,it does not

Only very, very few intel wireless cards support AP mode in the 2.4 GHz band, none at all allow AP mode in the 5 GHz band (ignoring the lantiq X300/ X500 lineup, which isn't supported under OpenWrt or mainline linux).

Thank you for all help. I have now ordered Atheros AR5BXB92 which should hopefully solve the issue.

If I install Atheros card, should I remove kmod-iwlwifi and presumably install software bundle that is Atheros-compatible?

How much did you pay for that AR9280 based one?

Yes,remove iwlwifi and install kmod-ath9k

10£ + 5£ shipping (bought used one off Ebay).

Funny, all this time I believed that AP and client mode is just a matter of software. I stand corrected :slight_smile:

Yes and no...

  • some were hardware capable; but there were never open source drivers released with the capability (e.g. some older Broadcom devices like the WRT54G series)
  • others are not hardware capable (e.g. Intel desktop cards)

Just to be registered: I have a HP Mini Netbook with mini pcie broadcom wifi card b/g as AP mode. I've tried all drivers on Lede repository. My desktop or smartphone connects as g 54mb/s, but file transfer don't go over 1,5MB/s. Through Ethernet, file transfer works fine on 100mb/s.
On Windows, wifi card as AP mode file transfer goes over 4MB/s.

Yeah, it is obvious that LEDE on x86 should not be used as Wireless router as driver support and card availability is rather bad. I have four AP's doing the wireless and plan to use x86 wireless just for low-bandwith guest and IoT clients.

I have LEDE x86 running on an ESXi server with 802.11n WiFi via a WNFQ-258ACN(BT) which uses a QCA6174 chip.
I got the card from ebay.
I've enabled pci passthrough in ESXi, installed the packages bellow and disabled disassoc_low_ack because otherwise it keeps disconnecting.
I had to use this board.bin file.

opkg update
opkg install luci hostapd
opkg install kmod-ath10k
opkg install ath10k-firmware-qca6174
cp /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin_WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin
replace board.bin
reboot

vi /etc/config/wireless
config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
	option device 'radio0'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option ssid 'SSID'
	option key 'password'
	option encryption 'psk2'
	option disassoc_low_ack 0

logread -f

That is great info! Does it work in 5GHz band as well? in such case, this is the first ac-capable card that works with x86 LEDE...it should be good for 867Mbps on 5GHz ac.

Well,any ath9k or ath10k supported card will work fine

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Yeah, I just tried latest build (SNAPSHOT r7310-65c05301c2) and 5 GHz band worked. With LEDE 17.01, only 2.4 GHz works. LEDE 18.06 will come out soon, anyway. Also with the latest build no board.bin was required. Just installed hostapd, kmod-ath10k and ath10k-firmware-qca6174, an I was good to go.
Don't expect 867 Mbps though. More like 200-250 Mbps.

Update: just installed Atheros AR5BXB92 and kmod-ath9k. Rock solid WiFi on x86. It is not AC-capable but plenty enough for Guest WiFi and Chinese IoT stuff (client isolation on, of course)

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Just a small warning: some mini-PC vendors (like my Partaker B5 Fanless mini PC) will ship SMA connectors instead of RP SMA.

This caused me all kinds of grief and head-scratching as I got very low power/range/dBm). It was first after I unscrewed the antennas I noticed that both are "female" in the middle. I solved this by inserting a small copper wire in the middle.

If you get everything to work but signal is abysmally bad range, unscrew the SMA connector and take a look if middle pin is missing.

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