ALFA NETWORK AWUS036AXML 802.11axe WiFi 6E USB 3.0 Adapter AXE3000, Tri Band 6 GHz, Gigabit Speed up to 3Gbps

First of all, I would like to highlight the excellent work of Amazon and DHL. They are truly a wonderful team. The package arrived within 2 to 3 days maximum from the USA to Morocco. With Amazon, I don’t have to worry about customs issues, packages being held, or wasting my time and money. Everything is handled directly on the Amazon website, and the item is delivered straight to my home. 👉 10/10 for Amazon, no doubt. Regarding the AWUS036AXML: The device is beautiful and well built, but I find it less effective than my old RT3070, which was plug and play, required no driver installation, and had better long-range signal reception. The AWUS036AXML driver really needs an update. I hope that Windows will integrate its driver directly in the future. That said, it is still a reliable Wi-Fi card with solid overall performance. 👉 I recommend it.

This is a mix bag review it has 5 starts because It works and it worked with windows 10, and it worked well. But I got it to use on my lcd steam deck. And even though I got it to work on my steamdeck I only got it to work on my steamdeck using lower grade USB cables. Any higher end Cable would work long enough to detect WiFi networks but then would quickly crash. Forcings the deck to reboot. And the only way I found around this was to use low-end charge cables. But then I would end up with another issue if I unplug the WiFi adapter the steam deck would still crash. I suspect these issues to be driver related. But since I'm not tech savvy enough to debug Linux. I'll just have to wait till newer instances of steamos come out hopefully with driver fixes and updates for this WiFi adapter. I have had Alfa USB adapters in the past and had no issues with them. I have been pleasantly happy it is disappointing that this one is giving me issues. But it's probably driver issues baked in to a very niche device. So I can't blame Alfa

I use this in combination with a GL.iNet GL-MT3000 travel router to rebroadcast a local wifi signal on my own SSID - this allows me to avoid having to log every device into the network, solves the incompatibility of Chromecasts with hotel captive portal setups, and have all of the connected clients tunnel through a VPN even if they don't directly connect to the VPN themselves. This plugs into the router's USB port, and connects to the local site AP, while all clients connect to the MT3000. This device is supported well in OpenWRT's master branch (and maybe the 23.x releases?) The only minor issue, and it's kind of a known quantity for Alfa's high-power long-range units, is that it's a power hog and will not work reliably with the MT3000 using that router's stock power supply which is undersized - you need to inject extra power into the system to have it be stable. But that's more of an issue with the MT3000 than this product.

This adapter reports CN regulatory domain in Linux and does not allow proper 6 GHz operation in the US. Not suitable for monitoring or advanced Linux use. This seller, PAC Solutions, is selling CN-programmed stock into non-CN markets.

I just purchased this adapter to take advantage of the capabilities associated with the 802.11ax standard, and despite the official stance that it should be "plug and play" on Ubuntu, I did run into an issue with getting it to work. The fix is pretty easy though. My system is running Ubuntu 22.04 with the latest kernel, but in order to get the driver to load properly I had to disable bluetooth by blacklisting it in my /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file. For good measure I also removed the two BT firmware files (BT_RAM_CODE*) in /lib/firmware/mediatek/. Once I did that it started working.

MT7922 chip has in kernel drivers in recent kernels. Worked in x86_64 arch Linux and a RaspiOS bullseye install on an Rpi3. Tested via hostapd to make an access point, and everything was just plug play, charge the config text file and bam DIY access point. For bonus stability, disable Bluetooth if you don't need it. Power is decent, made it about 25m through 3 walls from the house to the garage on 2.4ghz, about as good as my old R7000 router could do. Alfa stuff is not the cheapest out there, but it is well made.

Windows 11 Pro. Works most of the time and when it does is very fast. Every couple of days I need to physically disconnect and reconnect. Bluetooth does not work. Drivers are hard to get and they are not Signed making it an untrusted device.

This WiFi adapter comes with a long USB-C cable and accessories that help mount it in a spot with a good signal - e.g., high on the wall. The experience is plug-and-play on Linux, but a driver needs to be installed on Windows. A link to the driver download is given within a leaflet that comes with the adapter. Windows 11 complains that not many people run the driver installer and that it could be malicious, which is, of course, false. I previously left a one-star review highlighting a weak transmitter and very slow upload speeds as compared to AWUS036ACM, especially under Windows (AWUS036ACM: 193 Mbits/sec, AWUS036AXML: 33.7 Mbits/sec). This turned out to be caused by a long-standing bug in the access point (Linksys E8450 reflashed to OpenWrt). OpenWrt was driving the wireless card in the AP into advertising an out-of-spec 160 MHz mode, which somehow worsened the connection even though the 160 MHz bandwidth was not actually used. I hereby correct the review, as it is unfair to punish a wireless adapter for a bug in the access point firmware. The OpenWrt bug applies to 802.11ax access points and routers based on MediaTek chipsets. Avoid such routers, or search the Open forum for a fix (thread: "802.11ax worse than 802.11ac with mt76 driver?"), or do not install OpenWrt on them, and this wireless adapter will serve you well.