I just bought an M.2 base for my Argon One case. It is v2.2 of the M.2 board but, when fitted, 2.4 GHz wifi does not work. The Raspberry Pi can see the AP but it cannot connect to it. With 5 GHz the AP is seen and can be connected to. If I remove the M.2 base and put on the original one and run a copy of the same OS from an SD card, 2.4 GHz connects and works fine. I have read that there were wifi problems caused by the earlier v1.x M.2 boards but this was supposedly fixed.
Anyone else suffering this? Is there anything I can do or am I limited to 5 GHz and LAN only?
I have a v1.x board and a v2.2 board.
I modified my WPA supplicant file to specify the bssid of the 5 gHz access point to ensure it always connects to the 5 gHz one.
After getting a v2.2 board I left that in place as I find my devices (not just raspberry pi) seem to pick 2.4 over 5.
Thanks for the info.
The problem is that the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz Access Points are different APs on different networks. At the moment the AP with 2.4 GHz only has 2.4 GHz, so there is no 5 GHz signal for the device to “prefer”. That is the one I need to connect the Argon One Pi to, but it will not connect when the M.2 base is fitted.
@Frenezaj Both the Argon One Base/Case itself (https://www.martinrowan.co.uk/2021/06/argon-one-m-2-ssd-case-wifi-issues-resolved/) as well as the HDMI connections (Raspberry Pi 4 HDMI Is Jamming Its Own WiFi | Hackaday) can cause significant issues with Raspberry Pi WiFi connectivity (depending on a number of factors: argon case hdmi interference wifi - Google 搜尋).
While the articles listed above may give the indication that the issues have now been “resolved”, my experience has been the opposite and that switching over to 1Gbps wired Ethernet has been the only option for reliable network connectivity (with decent throughout).
I’ve also found (as an alternative) that disconnecting any HDMI connections and running “headless” (e.g. connecting via VNC as needed) seems to offer reasonably reliable WiFi connectivity (with unfortunately anemic throughput) but this would likely only be an option for very specific applications (definitely not in cases where the intention is to use the Raspberry Pi as a desktop workstation replacement).
1 Like
@jamesgrace thanks for that really useful information. I had seen the first link but as I had not even considered HDMI interference I did not see the other. I mainly use Pis headless and if I have used them with a desktop environment they have been connected via ethernet. This is the first time I have tried to create a desktop computer type setup in an Argon One with wifi and it’s feeding a 2560x1440 monitor!
Of course, for me, replacing the M.2 base with the original does allow 2.4 GHz and I get about 50Mbps download. I guess that having a PCB above and below the Pi, which itself could be having HDMI interference issues, is just too much for the poor old 2.4 GHz signal!
I think I’ll follow your example and stick to ethernet.
USB 3.0 actually affects 2.4 GHz signals, so if you need wifi, an external adapter with a large antennae in the spare USB 3.0 port will help-they’re designed to handle the interference.
Source 1
Source 2