Does Windows 7 not recognize wireless 802.11ac?

[thomas1028]

I have a usb wifi adapter that works well and as it should when testing on my W10 computer, connects as 802.11ac and speed up to 280mbps on speedtest.net. When I install the usb wifi on my W7 laptop, it connects as 802.11n and but it shows that its connected at 867 mbps, which is the wireless AC band, and it gets only 40 mbps on speedtest.

I've tried seting the usb wifi adapter mode to 802.11ac only and it still connects as 802.11n. I don't care too much about it showing up as N, I just want the speed to be maxed out as if it were on AC. This only happens on the W7 laptop so I'm convinced this is an OS problem. Is there any way to fix this?

 

[samuria]

AC wasnt around when 7 was built are you using 7 WiFi to connect as it may not understand a lot of wireless have their own connection software which will understand. Do you see bith bands ok?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

AC wasnt around when 7 was built are you using 7 WiFi to connect as it may not understand a lot of wireless have their own connection software which will understand. Do you see bith bands ok?

Horsefeathers. AC works just fine with Win 7 (it does for me). It's more likely a hardware compatibility and/or a driver settings issue with the laptop.

Another possibility is what kind of USB port the adapter is plugged into. AC Wi-Fi adapters have to be plugged into a USB 3.0 port to reach full speeds (in a USB 2.0 port, the best they will get are N speeds). Even then, not all USB 3.0 ports are created equal. It's not unusual for some machines with USB 3.0 ports to be slower than other machines. Keep in mind that to qualify as USB 3.0, it only needs to be faster than USB 2.0. 5Gbs is merely the upper limit of USB 3.0.

 

[thomas1028]

Horsefeathers. AC works just fine with Win 7 (it does for me). It's more likely a hardware compatibility and/or a driver settings issue with the laptop.

Another possibility is what kind of USB port the adapter is plugged into. AC Wi-Fi adapters have to be plugged into a USB 3.0 port to reach full speeds (in a USB 2.0 port, the best they will get are N speeds). Even then, not all USB 3.0 ports are created equal. It's not unusual for some machines with USB 3.0 ports to be slower than other machines. Keep in mind that to qualify as USB 3.0, it only needs to be faster than USB 2.0. 5Gbs is merely the upper limit of USB 3.0.

I used the 2.0 port on the W10 desktop and it still connects to AC and gets almost the same speed as the 3.0 port so its not the ports.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I used the 2.0 port on the W10 desktop and it still connects to AC and gets almost the same speed as the 3.0 port so its not the ports.

I find that hard to believe. Back when I was still using Wi-Fi, I connected my adapter to both a USB 2.0 port and to a USB 3.0 port on my Win 7 desktop just to see what would happen and the USB 3.0 was much faster.



Read here and here for more on the subject.

 

[thomas1028]

I'm positive it's the 2.0 port. I took off the keyboard USB and put the wifi card in its port and double checked that it was a 2.0 in the manual.