802.11ac network connecting as N

[Philippart]

Hello,

I have a wlan router that supports 802.11ac (I enabled it in the settings) and a 802.11ac compatible wlan adapter.
However when I connect to the network, it only recognizes it as a 802.11n network and also shows the 2.4Ghz channel number instead of the 5 Ghz channel number.

This is happens on a vista and windows 7 computer.

How can I enable 802.11ac on these pcs?

 

[RedRooster]

Name your 2.4 and 5G channels differently, then you can connect to the 5G one easier. That'll get you your AC speeds.

 

[JackMDS]

Name the 2.4GHz something2, and the 5GHz something5 (you can use the same security PW but configure both to WPA2, or WPA-AES.).

If you do not need to connect an old to a/b/g Wireless card via a.

Configure the 5GHZ to do only A/N and make it your business that the A/N cards perefer to log to the 5 GHz ch. (Windows Wireless manger can help in such configuration ).

 

[Philippart]

thanks, changing the name worked for nearby devices.

other devices, further away, only "see" the 2.4Ghz N network. I thought the AC network was supposed to extend upon it in terms of transfer rate AND range?

is anything wrong with my setup or is this normal?

 

[smitbret]

thanks, changing the name worked for nearby devices.

other devices, further away, only "see" the 2.4Ghz N network. I thought the AC network was supposed to extend upon it in terms of transfer rate AND range?

is anything wrong with my setup or is this normal?

You're confusing n & ac with 2.4GHz & 5GHz. Wireless N can run on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. If you were to set your dual band router to n on both frequencies (and eliminate ac for testing purposes), you'd see that the 2.4GHz gets about twice the range as the 5GHz. It's just the limitation of the frequency. Because ac only runs on the 5GHz band, you are experiencing normal network behavior.