AC Mini PCIe card recommendation

Hi,
can anybody recommend a good Mini PCIe AC card that works under LEDE.
My team is making a QCA9557 based router we are looking for a good AC card that will work in combo with built in radio.

Thanks

The one included con Archer c7 (Qualcomm Atheros QCA9880-BR4A) is cheap, performs excellent and have very good support in Lede/OpenWRT.
It's a very well known platform.

I've personally had firmware or driver hangs with QCA9880. OTOH, QCA9990 has been rock solid for me.

9990 is probably overkill though. So I'll second the 9880.

There don't seem to be any good mt7612 cards available so those are out of the question.

Yeah...not much choice out there.

What driver/firmware are you using?
I've an Archer c7 and saw some problems (disconnecting devices on 9880 card) about 2 years ago, but they were solved and router is running rock solid since then.

One unit is on 17.01.3. Needs newer ath10k firmware probably. It usually takes a few days to trigger a driver crash.

My main router (also using 9880) on trunk is pretty solid. But I reboot it often :.

Thanks for recommendations.
I was looking at Intel's 7260-AC and QCA9880 but I am having a hard time finding where I can reliably get QCA9880 modules.
Only ones I could find were really expensive.

Intel chips do not support AP mode (and only recently was monitor mode fixed). Just client mode.

You could try the qca9882. I think it's a better fit since almost every device you encounter will be doing 2x2.

Alternatively, if full size miniPCIe is an option, you could get an m.2 to miniPCIe adapter and stick a QCA6174 card inside. The A variant supports MU-MIMO whereas the non A does not. Do note that the connectors for m.2 cards are smaller than miniPCIe. Usually I've seen these cards branded as Killer 1435 and 1535.

1 Like

How about BCM94352? that seems to be reasonably priced and has AC
Or the RTL8821AE maybe? Are these supported?

Broadcom and Realtek are a no go because of drivers.
In meanwhile we have selected integrated solution for 2.4GHz and 5GHz

Hi guys, I have tried using QCA9880-based WLE900VX in my router (espressobin) and I see only 5Ghz. Is there some special configuration required to use this as dual-band AP?

Please use this topic for recommendations only.
For questions, please open a new topic.