Windows 10: Have WiFi 6 compatible WiFi card but connects to WiFi 4

Hi I have a WiFi card capable of WiFi 6 but my pc with windows 11 keeps connecting to WiFi 4 so when I go to properties of the WiFi card and change the property to 802.11n/ac/ax Wireless Mode and change the value to Dual Band 802.11ax and press ok it goes back to the old property and value

:)

 

Recommendation for WiFi usb / card

If you have a desktop computer I would STRONGLY suggest a PCIe adapter rather than a USB adapter if you go with WiFi 6. The only USB WiFi adapters that I have seen thus far use a Realtek chipset which is reported to have some serious flaws. In my own personal experience, I have tried 2 of these and returned both, getting performance worse than other WiFi 5 adapters and constant disconnects even 10 feet from my WiFi router. If you go with a USB adapter, I would suggest a quality WiFi 5 adapter. One more note: Should you decide to go with a WiFi 6 PCIe adapter, I would suggest a WiFi 6e model. They actually cost no more, and they are one step up just in case you ever go to a WiFi 6e router.

 

Windows 11 automatically connecting with Wifi 4 instead of Wifi 6

I have a Wifi 6 capable wireless router that works just fine, although my windows 11 PC connects to it automatically with Wifi 4 protocol until I manually disconnect from it and re-connect, then it's using Wifi 6. I set the wireless adapter to 5GHz only mode, my mobile always displays the wifi protocol as Wifi 6, so it's only the PC that for some reason prefers Wifi 4. There is no option in my wireless driver to set the connection mode to *ax exclusive.

Is there a solution to force windows to always try connecting with 802.11ax protocol?

 

Windows 11 automatically connecting with Wifi 4 instead of Wifi 6

First of all, I didn't say that the problem is on your router, read carefully. I simply hypothesized that this behavior could be caused by Band Steering if this option is enabled on the router, and therefore I suggested trying to disable it and rename the 2 networks by assigning different SSIDs.

Regarding the fact that your phone is always able to connect to the WiFi 6 network, this means nothing as your phone certainly uses a different network card and the driver is also different, so the comparison is unrealistic.

The wireless mode appears to be set correctly but if for any reason the WiFi 6 network is not available or this network is disturbed, Windows could connect to the WiFi 4 network if this network appears to have a better signal. This is the behavior of automatic connection.

Go to the advanced properties of the WiFi adapter and try disabling wireless roaming or set it to the minimum value. Otherwise, temporarily configure the hotspot on your smartphone, then connect to the hotspot with your PC and see if the behavior is the same or if it is different.