# Dual Band WIFI card



## TUXBSD (Mar 27, 2016)

Hi. I have a laptop running Linux Mint 17.3 and FreeBSD 10.2. It came with a Realtek rtl8192  which works well on both OS's, but lacks bluetooth and is single band and single stream. I am well aware that FreeBSD 10 is perfectly capable of handling abgn 2x2 hardware at full capacity and because of that I wanted to take full advantage of my dual band, dual antenna, 2x2 N router by swapping the wifi card in my laptop (very easy to do, and laptop doesn't use BIOS WIFI DRM so I can install any card I want), there is only one small limitation. The laptop uses an AMD APU processor and it just won't even POST, beep or show anything on screen if I install an Intel WIFI card, this leaves me without access to the best supported card that would match what I want to put in it which is the intel 6230 which is abgn 2x2 + BT fully supported in all BSD's and Linux and looking for alternatives. I found the on ebay a FOXCONN T77H348.02 which contains an Atheros ar9462 abgn 2x2 chip along with BT and also a Ralink rt3592bc8 which is a abgn 2x2 chip with BT and wanted to know. Are they compatible with FreeBSD? Which one? I would like to know before ordering one since shipping and handling fee from USA to Panamá (where I live) are quite outrageous.
Thanks


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## Phishfry (Mar 27, 2016)

I think that you may have problems with the combo modules which are both wifi and bluetooth... I generally recommend Atheros wireless devices on FreeBSD as they work well. On the pfSense forums many of the Atheros wifi issues are on modules with bluetooth. I avoid them. The Dell Latitudes I service have a separate bluetooth module and that is a good thing in my opinion.
I just thought i would throw that out there. Look around the forum for bluetooth posts. It is a mixed bag.


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## TUXBSD (Mar 27, 2016)

Well I have had good luck with Intel and Atheros combo modules in my past laptops. I do in fact have an Intel 6230 from an older laptop that kicked the bucket (a System76 Darter) after 9 years of reliably holding all my hard-core gaming sessions and multiple VM's. Now I'm on a Gateway AMD laptop which so far has worked good, except of course that the Intel card won't work on it due to it having an AMD CPU. I was asking because the rt3592 I saw on ebay cheaper than the foxconn atheros based one and wanted to know if I can go with the cheaper rt3592bc8 (ebay doesn't carry the non-bt model of that card, and only carry the full-size variants of the ar9280 and ar9380, which won't work because my laptop uses a half-size minipcie slot) which is only doable if it is supported on freebsd or if I need to spend a bit more for the foxconn atheros one (the normal non-bt ar9462 are more expensive than the foxconn one on ebay).
BTW: I'm trying only on ebay because the payment handling company I use have the better pricing and discount schemes only for stuff that you buy on ebay, so I'm for economic reasons stuck with looking on ebay.


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## Phishfry (Mar 28, 2016)

I think if you look at the run driver it says the caveat is the lack of 802.11N on the RALink. All those units use the same firmware blob.
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?run(4)
See very bottom. I think your RT3592 uses this driver.
That said it works but 802.11G only. Maybe I was not using the correct commands. The manual could be outdated.

Have you considered a usb stick for BlueTooth (that someone here says works-check forum)? Separate the objectives. 
Wifi-wise the AR9380 is readily available on ebay. It is 3X MiMo and works very well. A Dell-Alienware Bigfoot module.

Intel 3X MiMo cards are good and cheap cards too. Since you are limited to a half-sized MiniPCIe slot the Atheros AR5BHB112 is the only AR9380 offering but quite expensive. The main reason I like Atheros and RALink is they support HostAP mode. Some of the Intel cards do as well.


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## TUXBSD (Mar 28, 2016)

That's the thing. The ar5bhb112 is more expensive than the other 2 I listed. So even if I actually wanted to ditch the combo cards, I would have to deal with the larger expense. And Intel cards are no-go due to my AMD CPU (tested with my N-6230). I also found that the run driver works for the rt*53*92 (not the rt3592).
Thanks anyway.


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