RealTek RTL8822CE 802.11 ac adapter not showing "ac" in "wireless mode"

[Peteg256]

My laptop does not employ Wifi 5 when connecting to my eero mesh router.  When I checked my configuration, it says it is using wifi 4 (802.11n) on the 2.4Ghz band.  I tried to force it to use 5Ghz band in the adapter setting using the wireless mode and don't see an option for "ac".  My driver is 2024.0.10.223.  Software update says that is the most recent.  Any ideas on how to get my laptop to use the higher speed "ac" protocol?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The default settings for the Wi-Fi adapter on the Advanced tab should be all you need to get the adapter to connect to the 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi band.

That would be a/b/g... 'a' being 5.0 GHz.

The only suggestion I can offer would be to update the Wi-Fi driver to the latest version.

2024.10.228.1   01/31/2023

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp144501-145000/sp144871.exe 

Restart the PC after installing the driver.

[Peteg256]

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@Paul_Tikkanen wrote:

Hi:

The default settings for the Wi-Fi adapter on the Advanced tab should be all you need to get the adapter to connect to the 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi band.

That would be a/b/g... 'a' being 5.0 GHz.

The only suggestion I can offer would be to update the Wi-Fi driver to the latest version.

2024.10.228.1   01/31/2023

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp144501-145000/sp144871.exe 

Restart the PC after installing the driver.

@Paul_Tikkanen - thank you for the information.  If I wanted to only use the 5Ghz then I would suppose I would just select the "a" option.  Second question though is support for the "ac" wifi 5 speeds.  I don't see that option and was wondering if that is why I am connecting with wirfi4 "n".

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[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Unfortunately, I don't know why your notebook doesn't see and connect to your 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi network.

I have the RTL8821CE Wi-Fi adapter, which is the 1 x 1 version of your model adapter (runs at half the throughput) and it finds and connects to the 5.0 GHz band with the default advanced Wi-Fi settings.

I'm using the same driver version I posted for you.

I have the preferred band setting at '5G first'

I have the wireless mode set to 'a/b/g'

My card's advanced settings do not have an ac option either.

So, if you can't connect to a 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi network, my assumption would be that there is a hardware problem with the card and the 5.0 GHz band is not working on it for some reason.

[Peteg256]

Thank you again.  I noticed this morning that I was connected to the 5Ghz Wifi 5 mode.  I had updated the driver and restarted the PC but it may be that my router held the connection to the previous 2.4Ghz Wifi 4 mode.  I am guessing either a DHCP lease expired and renewed, or my router was restarted making the connection restart in the fasted mode.

Thank you,

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.