Only 1 Spatial Stream on a 2x2 Card

[connorm]

posting here because in all my days of wireless networking ive never seen something like this.

im running a lenovo T440P running MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 with a broadcom?BCM94360NG, the reason i put the question mark is it seems hard to find documentation on this card, as it tends to be a very rare wifi card used only in hackintosh builds, it is definately a copy or the same card used in atleast one recent apple computer which means it has plug and play OS support, i got the card because i want working airdrop on my hackintosh and found the modded intel 9260 firmware i was using didnt work well on 5GHz, only 2.4GHz

first i noticed i was only getting 50/80mbps which seemed odd for a 2x2 AC card, then i noticed it was dropping about 10% of packets, so i decided to check the link stats, and noticed only 1 of the 2 spacial streams is being established.

to verify the antennas work i have a succesfful 2x2 link using an intel AC9260

is it likely the card is faulty? or is there any explanation to why this should be happening, i have verified the antennas are connected to the correct main and aux connections and also tried reversing them with no luck, seems this card is having some issues and ive never seen anything like it.

many others are confirmed to have this card and showing speeds upwards of 300mbps so i know that 2x2 is possible forsure

 

[rafale77]

Very likely a faulty card or a bad/shorted antenna connector on the card. I would replace the card.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Boot the laptop off of a Live Linux distro which probably has support for more WiFi cards and see if it works OK with that.

 

[thiggins]

Are you sure the connector type on the card matches the one on your antenna leads? Are they firmly connected? I always use a "wiggle" test to make sure the connection is good. Grab the antenna lead and move it side to side and make sure the connection stays in place.

 

[connorm]

Boot the laptop off of a Live Linux distro which probably has support for more WiFi cards and see if it works OK with that.

if you look up the card, its basically a PITA or impossible to get working on linux or windows

Are you sure the connector type on the card matches the one on your antenna leads? Are they firmly connected? I always use a "wiggle" test to make sure the connection is good. Grab the antenna lead and move it side to side and make sure the connection stays in place.

i tried this, i tried everything to ensure antennas were making proper connection and they were, also they work totaly fine with another card. gonna return this card and try another i guess. its definately dropping more packets than ive ever seen anything drop

 

[sfx2000]

Very likely a faulty card or a bad/shorted antenna connector on the card. I would replace the card.

I tend to agree here...

MacOS is pretty reliable on the driver level on what the card is capable of - might be a fake, IMHO...