5Ghz not supported on Windows 10 Drivers?

[FragglePete]

We have a HP Wireless system looked after by a MSM760 Controller. It's not the best, just a bit 'Meh' rather than 'Wow' and generally it's been ok. As of late we've been getting issues in our Sixth Form building in particular with a batch of Toshiba Satellite Pro C50-A-1MX Laptops which we have always seemed to work happily; they make up a bank of 40 laptops that Students can use as and when they wish.

We've moved over to Windows 10 in September but only really noticed issues recently with Laptops loosing network connectivity or taking an age to log on.

 

What I've noticed is that the Wireless Cards in these laptops are based on Atheros AR946x devices and for some reason seem to be stuck on 2.4Ghz and I'm sure they are 5Ghz capable. We're running the latest drivers as recommended by Toshiba but they is no option in the drivers configuration to force 5Ghz and they absolutely refuse to switch to 5Ghz. However, I just tried the last set of drivers Toshiba released for Windows 8.1 and after 'forcing' Windows 10 to load these drivers the laptops now seem to sit quite happily on 5Ghz with the Controller also stating that the device is now on Radio 1 (5Ghz).

 

So, right thing to do? I'm going to go off now and install this driver on the rest of the 39 devices we have (may just do a handful first to see what happens). But is this really a tad worrying.

We also have a batch of Lenovo B50-70 laptops which are using AR956x chipset that also seems to sit on 2.4Ghz only, but I can't get these on to 5Ghz. Some research says that these may not be capable of 5Ghz as it's 'optional' within the standard which may explain why they were so cheap!

 

Pete

Edited November 17, 2016 by FragglePete

[MrEprise]

Just to give this some closure, the majority of cards produced with the AR946x and 956x chipsets tend to be 2.4GHz as are the ones in some of the laptops we have (we've recently swapped out Atheros cards in 20 HP laptops with Intel ones as the performance was horrible) though as you said, the option for 5GHz is only there if vendor chooses to enable it within the firmware but more often than not it isn't!

[Michael]

The Atheros AR946x is definitely not dual band. I've come across this model often.

[FragglePete]

Since installing the older driver we now have 41 Toshiba Laptops running at 5Ghz with the Atheros AR946x and all the issues we were having in our Sixth Form have disappeared. This is a bank of laptops we have available to our Yr 12 & Yr 13 students who can loan out these devices as and when necessary during the day. As I said, the driver that came with Windows 10 was stuck at 2.4Ghz, but the older driver is allowing 5Ghz and the Wireless Management Controller is reporting as such - we were getting a lot of issues beforehand but all good now.

 

As for our other bank of 16 x Lenovo Laptops with the AR956x - we're screwed. No dual band support and we get issues (not all the time) when they go out all together.

 

Pete

[Michael]

Hmmm think I may have to eat my own words here!

 

Windows 10 Redstone installs driver version 3.0.2.201 and you're right, will only see 2.4GHz.

 

If I then install driver version 10.0.0.341 (downloaded from Atheros's website), it will connect to 5GHz! This was never an issue on the original Windows 10 July 2015 build!

 

I've had another similar issue with Redstone too, (also appears driver related). Since deploying Redstone, audio over HDMI no longer works, but it did with the original build. Anyone else experienced this?

[sted]

Hmmm think I may have to eat my own words here!

I've had another similar issue with Redstone too, (also appears driver related). Since deploying Redstone, audio over HDMI no longer works, but it did with the original build. Anyone else experienced this?

Possibly my nuc at home sometimes misreads/missets the audios default format to one my amp dosent like (or at least wont play) and i have to go in and change the options for it then audio is fine (it usually does this if i turn on the nuc and the amp is off or i turn off the amp when the nuc is on its as if instead of remembering the last known good setting it defaults to some failsafe for no reason

 

[Michael]

Well I've searched articles online and they say to change the source in Sound/Audio properties, but only the one analog option is available (or in other words) the 3.5" headphone jack, despite the audio card being labelled a digital audio device; it's definitely not the HDMI source.

 

Tried updating both Intel and Realtek drivers and no joy. Had this happen twice now, two different systems.

[Michael]

I came across another issue today - Intel HD 4600 Graphics on Redstone, the installed driver - 10.18.15.4248 it completely freezes/locks up the computer and the dmp files confirm so. Another Microsoft disaster!

[crash082782]

Hi, I too have a QUALCOMM Atheros AR946x wireless adapter in my ASUS R554LA-RH51T laptop. I cannot see 5ghz even after installing the driver that you mentioned. Is there anything that I am missing?

[Michael]

Updating the driver from Atheros's website direct does work, but you have to manually specify it within Device Manager, against Windows 10's recommended driver.