I have an old laptop with Intel AC 7260 Wi-Fi module and the Slate 7 router. The module is capable of 802.11b/g/n/ac and can normally connect to Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 access points over 2.4 and 5 GHz.
However, the laptop doesn't see the Slate 7 access points in the air, nor at 2.4 GHz, nor at 5 GHz. I’ve tried to change the bandwidth, channels — it doesn't help. The access point's visibility is turned on.
At the same time, my smartphone is connecting to the router successfully and showing Wi-Fi 6 on both 2.4 and 5 GHz.
So, isn't Slate 7 backward compatible with old Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 devices?
Make sure that your encryption mode is compatible with your old laptop. You might need to lower it to WPA2 (or maybe even WPA, not sure?) This depends mainly on your used OS.
Country code should be the same as well.
And finally: Is your laptop able to see any Wi-Fi?
Tried all authentication mode — doesn't work. The laptop (running Windows 7) simply doesn't see the access points in the air (nor in GUI, nor in netsh wlan show networks output), although it successfully sees 26 other access points.
It it possible to switch from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 4?
Surely, the old laptop is working perfectly with my previous router over both 2.4 and 5 GHz (as well as I've never had any issues with any access point).
It seems that the driver of AC-7260 is having some bug making it incompatible with Wi-Fi 6. I will try to update the driver later. But what it interesting, what makes Wi-Fi 6 so different? And is it possible to tweak some config on the router to make it Really compatible with Wi-Fi 4 or Wi-Fi 5?
As I said in the first post, it seems that the router is really operating on Wi-Fi 6 and higher, even on 2.4 HGz (as it is reported by my smartphone). So, for some ancient devices, which can work over only Wi-Fi 4 or Wi-Fi 5, it would be good to have some config or UI option to make the router compatible. Like tweaking the hwmode parameter or whatever.