Upgrading laptops with CNVio WiFi adapters (eg Intel AC 9560) to newer Intel WiFi 6 (AX200) WiFi 6e (AX210) WiFi 7 (BE200) cards

[Masimo]

I own a MSI GS75 8SE laptop that originally came with a Killer 1550i. I've exchanged the Killer with a regular AC9560. Now, I was looking into an upgrade to AX. Yesterday, I was strolling through the (hidden) advanced BIOS settings that can be enabled in MSI laptops by pressing Left Alt + Right CTRL + Right Shift + F2, while in the BIOS. I found a bunch of settings for the CNVi interface. It made me suspect that there might be a way to get an AX200 working (or perhaps even an AX201). The BIOS offers a bunch of settings for the CNVi interface, including a disable option. Maybe in that way the CNVi interface can turned into a normal PCIE interface. 
I ordered an AX200 for a first try today that will arrive in a couple of days. Perhaps I can make it work by playing around with the advanced BIOS settings. 

Anyone here that owns an MSI Laptop too and has an unused AX200 / 201 still lying around, could perhaps beat me to it.
 

[nosirrahx]

21 hours ago, Masimo said:

I own a MSI GS75 8SE laptop that originally came with a Killer 1550i. I've exchanged the Killer with a regular AC9560. Now, I was looking into an upgrade to AX. Yesterday, I was strolling through the (hidden) advanced BIOS settings that can be enabled in MSI laptops by pressing Left Alt + Right CTRL + Right Shift + F2, while in the BIOS. I found a bunch of settings for the CNVi interface. It made me suspect that there might be a way to get an AX200 working (or perhaps even an AX201). The BIOS offers a bunch of settings for the CNVi interface, including a disable option. Maybe in that way the CNVi interface can turned into a normal PCIE interface. 
I ordered an AX200 for a first try today that will arrive in a couple of days. Perhaps I can make it work by playing around with the advanced BIOS settings. 

Anyone here that owns an MSI Laptop too and has an unused AX200 / 201 still lying around, could perhaps beat me to it.
 

According to this the 1550i and 9560 are the same underlying chip:

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000026140/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking.html

 

Both are CNVio so you may have compatibility issues with the AX200. If you do either the bluetooth or wireless wont be available. If the AX200 works out of the box you are lucky as there is no chance that the AX201 will work.

It will be interesting to see how your upgrade goes. This thread is more or less cataloging the compatibility of AX200/AX201 since Intel does not seem to give 2 craps about it.

[The_Geek]

https://www.amazon.com/2400Mbps-Wireless-Bluetooth-AX201NGW-Interface/dp/B07Z4R3JMR#customerReviews

Just 2 reviews, and Not compatible...

Go figure..

[Masimo]

Brief update. As mentioned I tried to get the AX200 working in my MSI GS75, as a replacement for the AC9560.

Allthough many BIOS options are available to tinker with, the laptop does not recognize the AX200.

The bluetooth portion of the AX200, however, works.

Hopefully a future BIOS update might solve the AX-wifi issue.

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 hours ago, Masimo said:

Brief update. As mentioned I tried to get the AX200 working in my MSI GS75, as a replacement for the AC9560.

Allthough many BIOS options are available to tinker with, the laptop does not recognize the AX200.

The bluetooth portion of the AX200, however, works.

Hopefully a future BIOS update might solve the AX-wifi issue.

Makes sense, Bluetooth is no doubt USB on both CNVi and PCIe cards.  So the difference is if you slot supports PCIe or not, presumably not.

 

I wish someone had done a PCIe and CNVi pinout comparison, as clearly they don't use the same pins and its optional if the M.2 is wired to support just one or both technologies.

[nosirrahx]

On 2/5/2020 at 3:40 PM, Masimo said:

Brief update. As mentioned I tried to get the AX200 working in my MSI GS75, as a replacement for the AC9560.

Allthough many BIOS options are available to tinker with, the laptop does not recognize the AX200.

The bluetooth portion of the AX200, however, works.

Hopefully a future BIOS update might solve the AX-wifi issue.

This was my experience as well when I attempted to install the AX200 in my laptop with a CNVio port.

My understanding is that CNVio is designed for wireless cards that export functionality to the CPU so it is unlikely that a BIOS update will change anything.

The report of an AX200 being fully functional after replacing a CNVio card implies that perhaps there is also a port that supports both standards (like M.2 that supports both NVMe and SATA). If this exists, Intel has done nothing to document it.

[nosirrahx]

On 2/5/2020 at 10:03 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

I wish someone had done a PCIe and CNVi pinout comparison, as clearly they don't use the same pins and its optional if the M.2 is wired to support just one or both technologies.

I am away for quite a while but when I get back (March) I'll come back to this thread with pics of the pins from different cards.

I did some side by side when I was trying my upgrade and if I remember correctly there are pretty major inconsistencies between the AX200 and AX201 on the back side of the card.

[nosirrahx]

Curiosity got the best of me and I put some google images together. There is no way in hell that these 2 standards are even slightly compatible outside of both fitting in the same slot.

[herasymcuk]

I also wanted to share my experience with you. I have a pc with an Asrock z390 pro4 motherboard that has an m2-CNVio slot. I bought an AX200NGW card on amazon to see if it worked. I have an i7-9700. The card is regularly recognized, both for wi-fi and bluethoot. The drivers are updated. The wi-fi connects and works. But I have problems with bluetooth. If I go to search for new devices, no bluetooth device is detected. I tried with my smartphone, with my bluetooth headphones. Nothing. windows 10 continues to search for devices. Reading some guides on the internet, it is suggested to stop the bluetooth service and restart it. Done, but nothing is changed. The only thing I can't do is to modify the activation of the bluetooth service from "manual" to "automatic". When I click ok, an error message tells me that "incorrect parameter". What do you recommend? Thank you.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I assume you connected the antennas?

[herasymcuk]

Sincerly not. I don't want to buy them before to be sure that the chip itself works. Anyway wifi is working, connected to my router, without antennas. I think with bluetooth it should work even better....and i tried to keep close my phone near the motherboard without any result! (

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 minutes ago, herasymcuk said:

Sincerly not. I don't want to buy them before to be sure that the chip itself works. Anyway wifi is working, connected to my router, without antennas. I think with bluetooth it should work even better....and i tried to keep close my phone near the motherboard without any result! (

No, Bluetooth will likely not work at all as you experienced, because its extremely low power compared to WiFi.

[herasymcuk]

13 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

No, Bluetooth will likely not work at all as you experienced, because its extremely low power compared to WiFi.

I updated the bluetooh drivers with those that came out two days ago: BT_21.70.0_64_Win10
I tried to go really close, with my phone, to the m2-wifi socket of the motherboard, and I started to search for devices. To my surprise the pc revealed the phone this time. Moving the phone away a few cm, once connected, the connection fell immediately. So yes! Thank you! The problem is the antennas. I would never have believed, since the wi-fi connects to my router without problems (and at a greater distance).

[Power4Topo]

Hello. I also want to share my case. I have a Lenovo Y540-17IRH-PG0 laptop with Intel i7-9750H processor and HM370 chipset. Yesterday i replaced the Intel AC9560 Wi-Fi card with AX200 and everything works perfectly. So it is confirmed that Lenovo, just like ASUS, integrated a CNVio interface with full PCIe support. It also seems Lenovo has dropped the BIOS restriction for all new models. I don't have an AX201 card to try the compatibility, but almost certainly it will not work.

[Andrew Solmssen]

I want to add my info here since this is a high Google hit for this issue. We had a Dell Inspiron 7586 2-in-1 laptop with an Intel Wireless-AC 9560 card in it. We had about a year of troublefree operation, and then the wifi just quit working - the card would show a #10 error, could not start, or similar, and not work. The immediate fix was to boot into BIOS and reset to factory defaults, and it would work for 5 mins and then quit again. I purchased and installed an Intel AX200 card from amazon - it was a drop-in replacement and fingers crossed, it seems to have solved the issue. 

[Manifold]

I've been hit with the PCIE / CNVio / CNVio2 issue. The 9462 in my MSI B360i with an i5-8400 just died. AX200 did NOT work. Not detected at all. Now, i'm skeptical if the AX201 will work due to the differences between CNVio and CNVio2. If the AX201 does not work, how can i get an Wifi 6, AX card to work with this motherboard? It's like 1 year old. Ridiculous!

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Manifold said:

I've been hit with the PCIE / CNVio / CNVio2 issue. The 9462 in my MSI B360i with an i5-8400 just died. AX200 did NOT work. Not detected at all. Now, i'm skeptical if the AX201 will work due to the differences between CNVio and CNVio2. If the AX201 does not work, how can i get an Wifi 6, AX card to work with this motherboard? It's like 1 year old. Ridiculous!

Were starting to hear about where the AX201 DOES work now, it seems only the new Intel boards (eg Z490) and associated CPUs will work with it.

Must say I'm really surprised MSI cheaped out there in not including proper PCIe support.  Although, you said the 9462 failed, could it perhaps be the socket that has failed and thus why a replacement does not work either?

[Manifold]

11 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Were starting to hear about where the AX201 DOES work now, it seems only the new Intel boards (eg Z490) and associated CPUs will work with it.

Must say I'm really surprised MSI cheaped out there in not including proper PCIe support.  Although, you said the 9462 failed, could it perhaps be the socket that has failed and thus why a replacement does not work either?

The AX200 was not detected at all, when i put the 9462 back in it's detected just fine so it's not like the slot died. I've replaced wifi cards before and they seem to die quite frequently compared to other hardware components. I was hoping to upgrade the 9462 to wifi 6 but it looks like i'm stuck sidegrading to a 9560 which i'm not to thrilled about. As for MSI, i've seen some ways companies try to save a penny that blows my mind what they're willing to sacrifice in terms of quality or compatibility.

[Gtcrz]

@Alex Atkin UK Hi. I have Dell Inspiron 7590 running on i7 9750h. I tried to swap the stock intel AC 9560  wifi card with the AX 201 and the laptop was not booting up.

Is it possible to replace it with AX200? If not is there any other alternative for wifi6?

[firesyde424]

I have a GS75 Stealth 8SF and I'm going through this exact thing.  Back in March, I purchased the AX200 card.  I was able to get the bluetooth working but no amount of BIOS tweaking was able to get the wifi working.  I even poked it with a stick!

 

The laptop currently has the Killer Wireless AC-9560,  After being unable to get the AX200 working, I purchased an AX201 as it is keyed the same as my AC-9560.  Unfortunately, with the AX201 installed, my laptop won't even power on.  The best I can get is a solid white power LED on the front of the laptop.  I yanked the BIOS battery, completely drained the board, and tried just about every other motherboard trick I know and the result was always the same.

 

At this point, I'm looking for another compatible laptop to make sure the AX201 card itself isn't bad.

 

I haven't had much time to look through the settings in the advanced BIOS but at this point, it looks like at least the 8th gen GS75 can't handle the CNVio2 wireless cards.

[firesyde424]

After some additional research, it looks like you need a 400 series chipset for CNVio2 support so the AX201 is out.  Not only that, but for me specifically, it appears that MSI's implementation of the CNVio1 standard also prevents me from using the AX200 NGW.  After some further googling, it looks like the vast majority, if not all of the current M2 form factor wifi 6 cards are based on the AX200 or AX201 so I'm essentially screwed when it comes to WIFI 6 until someone makes a USB version,

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, firesyde424 said:

After some additional research, it looks like you need a 400 series chipset for CNVio2 support so the AX201 is out.  Not only that, but for me specifically, it appears that MSI's implementation of the CNVio1 standard also prevents me from using the AX200 NGW.  After some further googling, it looks like the vast majority, if not all of the current M2 form factor wifi 6 cards are based on the AX200 or AX201 so I'm essentially screwed when it comes to WIFI 6 until someone makes a USB version,

That's what I was afraid of, I was really surprised ASUS wired theirs as CNVio and PCIe compatible, as I had thought the point of CNVio was to remove PCIe entirely to save in motherboard design.  I'm glad ASUS didn't, but its certainly left us in a confusing state if some do, some don't.

I frankly am annoyed Intel invented another none-standard implementation of something that limits upgradability, its very anti consumer.  Fair enough for the soldered versions in ultrabooks, but it should have no place in socketed designs.

To be honest, I think the state of laptops these days is pretty bad.  You can't even buy the same specifications and know if its power/thermal limited.  Manufacturers should be much more open about EXACTLY what their laptops are capable of, including any potential upgrades.

[firesyde424]

13 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

That's what I was afraid of, I was really surprised ASUS wired theirs as CNVio and PCIe compatible, as I had thought the point of CNVio was to remove PCIe entirely to save in motherboard design.  I'm glad ASUS didn't, but its certainly left us in a confusing state if some do, some don't.

I frankly am annoyed Intel invented another none-standard implementation of something that limits upgradability, its very anti consumer.  Fair enough for the soldered versions in ultrabooks, but it should have no place in socketed designs.

To be honest, I think the state of laptops these days is pretty bad.  You can't even buy the same specifications and know if its power/thermal limited.  Manufacturers should be much more open about EXACTLY what their laptops are capable of, including any potential upgrades.

I get that, for sure.  I'm frustrated because my laptop isn't some $350 Walmart special and yet I still have to deal with compatibility issues caused because someone wanted to save a couple bucks on the wireless card implementation,

[firesyde424]

I'm curious if something like this might be a workaround or if I'll need to give up a full PCIe slot.

[LeDoc]

Hey, so my addition to this hardware lab of doom:

• I tried to install an AX200 into an Acer Swift 1 SF114-32, that comes with an AC 9560. Result: Bluetooth works, WLAN doesn't show. Same goes for a salvaged (but working) 8265NGW. There is no indication of whitelisting with Acer, higher tier models seem to accept other WLAN cards. But their BIOS is really awefull (InsydeH2O), so no way to fiddle with settings. My guess is, that it is wired for CNVIO and that's it. I am reluctant to throw it the AX201 bone. Also because the upgrade is not really necessary.
• Second try was to insert the AX200 card into my work laptop DELL Latitude 7490 (that had said 8265NGW installed before) aaaaaand it's dead. Well, at first it was dead. But pulling the main battery (and interestingly not the CMOS Battery) for a minute or so did the trick. System boots, both Bluetooth and Wifi show in device manager. It also connects to my Wifi6 capable router as expected and shows WIFI6 as connection type. But I didn't buy the card for my employer
• Third experiment (maybe something for firesyde424): a similar m.2 to miniPCIE adapter as you linked is in the mail. I will try it in an old Lenovo X220, which will be interesting on its own. I will add the results.

So, if anyone has experience in adding Wifi6 to the Swift 1, let me know.

Edit: Has anyone experience with vPro vs non-vPro versions of these cards?

Edit2: quick update on the AX200 in the Lenovo X220: There are sets on ebay that include an AX200 Card and an M.2 (NGFF) to miniPCIE adapter that also converts the bigger UFL antenna connector to the AX200's MHF4. There is a known procedure to make newer WLAN Card compatible to the X220, by taping pin 51 on the miniPCIE card. Result: Wifi works, Bluetooth does not right now. Luckily, the X220 has a seperate slot for bluetooth, so that's not a big issue.