Mediatek router with Apple Myth of Fact

[arthelinus]

I have been in the market for a router recently and ones that caught my eye had mediatek filogic 830 chip and most likely 2.4 and 5 ghz chips will also be mediatek too. Then I have seen multiple comments about compatible issues with mediatek chip router and apple devices. Most of our devices are apple, so this would make the router useless

Honestly i checked and a lot of devices had mediatek chips, that would make a lot of routers just bad with apple devices? But then no one seems to have mentioned it specifically when you see the reviews. So it must be a myth right? but a lot of people mention it randomly in posts or comments in general for mediatek. I also checked my previous routers and none of them were mediatek, it was either qualcom or broadcom. Honestly if the mediatek thing is likely true, purchasing a router is a nightmare. Not only do you have to look at the cost/performance then if chip is mediatek that all means nothing?

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @arthelinus.

Buy, test, and return if necessary within the return period.

That goes for any router you're considering.

Searching for things online is great and all. Nothing beats actually testing in your own environment though.

I have no Apple products, but my experience is that MediaTek products (WiFi adaptors and routers) is kind of a last-ditch option for wireless reliability and dependability.

 

[arthelinus]

returning is a bit difficult here and not an option.

 

[L&LD]

In that case, don't buy a product with potential issues with your client devices.

 

[arthelinus]

ah thanks. my choices are either mediatek filogic with asus or other brand with broadcom chip. I will go with the latter. its a lot more cheaper. But the asus one was really tempting.

 

[L&LD]

Good luck. And keep us posted on what model you decide on and your experience with it with your networking environment.

 

[sfx2000]

Based on testing, I've not observed any issues with MediaTek WiFi and Apple devices.

I have my preferences as a developer, mostly because of the SDK and toolsets, and there my preference is Qualcomm-Atheros - they're a SDK vendor I've worked with for years, and I'm quite aware of the specific quirks and capabilities of their chipsets...

Any issues with any chipset are mostly on the Router Vendors themselves, and what features/capabilities they enable, and bugs inside the Vendor software.

FWIW - if you're Apple centric, consider Synology - their RT6600ax is a good WiFi6 router with features that most people generally use. More importantly, they don't get in the way of things like AirPlay, AirPrint, and other Apple specific features.

 

[arthelinus]

i wanted to mention my findings if it helps anyone. Firstly i was previously using a xiaomi ax3600 which has qualcomm chips. it functioned flawlessly but this summer eventually started having random restarts so i went for the asus tuf ax6000. All was flawless on the xiaomi including mesh and router hopping when you go to different room. Maybe this was due to the qualcomm.

Firstly with the tuf ax6000, all devices function well. family has no problem on their phone or ipad. apple features also work well.
Problem 1:
there would be issues for my macbook where after sleep it just wont connect to wifi. so i will switch wifi off and on. Sometimes this also doesnt work and mac will just not connect back to the router. DHCP is already set so its weird it wont connect. Funnily enough it would connect to 2.4g without issue. 5g i would wait 5-10min then connect back.
Problem 2:
Apart from this, it was going well but i started noticing drops on macbook. it was very random honestly, i would be browsing and all of a sudden there would be times where i would be connected to wifi but there would be no internet. Or internet would be working and after 20min or some time it would start failing or slowing down. I would also not be able to connect to my router ip and if i pinged the router ip it would fail or time for pring would be over 999ms instead of usual 3-10ms. Only thing that fixes this would be me restarting the wifi signal or changing to a different wifi channel or just waiting. Maybe the channel is crowded i thought but i checked the channels and there was absolutely no congestion.
Problem 3:
Also if i changed room, swapping aimesh nodes was not fun. it would just fail to swap over or swap and i would have no internet untill i switched wifi off and on like in problem 1..



So i have tried a lot but fixing these isses seems a bit difficult to fix. I also tried another macbook and was having similar issues, so its not just 1 device. if anyone has been more successful with mediatek chipped routers, do let me know. most likely gonna try and return this thing and go for a qualcomm chip router. Maybe this was to be expected given asus work mostly with broadcom.

 

[arthelinus]

I want to update that setting router to 80mhz has fixed all issues. no other settings required. just disable 160mhz. wish there was a way to force macbook to connect via 80mhz. Not sure why this fixed it as i was having the issue in 2.4ghz also.

 

[coxhaus]

I have Cisco 150ax wireless APs and I have no issues with Apple devices. My wife is all Apple and I have an Apple iPhone.

 

[L&LD]

My wife is all Apple...

Lightning connector or...

 

[sfx2000]

I want to update that setting router to 80mhz has fixed all issues. no other settings required. just disable 160mhz. wish there was a way to force macbook to connect via 80mhz. Not sure why this fixed it as i was having the issue in 2.4ghz also.

With Apple - 20MHz in 2.4 and 80MHz in 5 GHz are generally a good thing - It's not just Macs, but all of the other devices like iPhone, iPad, HomePod, etc...

 

[sfx2000]

FWIW - I did find an issue with the MediaTek SDK drivers a couple of weeks back on their SDK...

It's low priority, but it's a malformed element in their beacon and association frames in the HE elements.

Folks have acknowledged it over at MediaTek - fixes in the driver/firmware itself are pending.

How fast this makes it out to vendors...