USB 3 mode

Some of our Wi-Fi chipsets and drivers are developed by Realtek. We prefer to package their official drivers while modifying as few of the available parameters as possible. For example, Realtek has chosen to disable the USB 3 port mode by default for compatibility with some older systems, which sometimes results in lower Wi-Fi connection speeds.

💡 Note: If your access point is using the slow 2.4 GHz band, there’s no benefit in switching to USB3 mode; it’s recommended to leave it in USB2 mode.

The instructions below mention 8852bu, which is the driver name for our AX1L and AX4L adapters. For AC1L/AC3L, replace it with 88x2bu. For AX8L, replace it with 8852cu. If you see any other driver name, do not follow these instructions.

To see your current speed, insert our adapter in a USB 3 slot, open a terminal and run lsusb -t. The output should be similar to this:

$ lsusb -t
/:  Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 5000M
    |__ Port 6: Dev 4, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=rtl8852bu, 5000M

If you see Driver=rtl8852bu, 5000M it means you’re using USB 3 mode, while if you see 480M it’s in USB 2 mode. To switch from USB2 to USB3 mode, run the following commands:

sudo -i
echo "options 8852bu rtw_switch_usb_mode=1" >/etc/modprobe.d/local.conf

Then reboot your computer and run lsusb -t again to see if the USB speed is now 5000M. Then connect to your access point and check if the Wi-Fi speed has increased.

If you ever want to undo the change, run the following commands and reboot:

sudo -i
echo 2 >/sys/module/8852bu/parameters/rtw_switch_usb_mode
rm /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf