ASUS PCE-BE6500 WiFi 7 card

[wbockhh]

Hello,

does anyone have experiences with the ASUS PCE-BE6500 which is decribed to have followin features
MediaTek MT7925
Triband 6 GHz / 5 GHz / 2,4 GHz
2,4 GHz – 688 Mbit
5 GHz – 2882 Mbit
6 GHz – 2882 Mbit
Bluetooth 5.3
M.2 NGFF
WLAN 7
PCI connector
and for connecting bluetooth with an adapter for connecting the usb-port on the mainboard and a bt-port on the card.

This card should cooperate with AMD and INTEL systems.

Accordíng to the description for the Netgear A9000 on this site ....

1. https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/USB_WiFi_Adapters_that_are_supported_with_Linux_in-kernel_drivers.md#be6500---usb30---24-ghz-5-ghz-and-6-ghz-wifi-7
2. How to install or update firmware for Mediatek-based USB WiFi adapters

.... I made all steps to activate the MT7925 drivers, but failed so far. The card isnt found on bootup.

Any idea what can be done??

Regards

Wolfgang

Here some extracts:
dmesg
[ 0.000000] Linux version 6.12.63+deb13-amd64 (debian-kernel@lists.debian.org) (x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-14 (Debian 14.2.0-19) 14.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.44) #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.12.63-1 (2025-12-30)
[ 0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.12.63+deb13-amd64 root=UUID=d702723c-de7f-4370-8d28-9805c86f5aa8 ro quiet
...
[ 0.043154] [mem 0xaf800000-0xfebfffff] available for PCI devices
...
[ 0.543651] acpiphp: ACPI Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.5
[ 0.544034] PCI: ECAM [mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff] (base 0xe0000000) for domain 0000 [bus 00-ff]
[ 0.544048] PCI: not using ECAM ([mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff] not reserved)
[ 0.544053] PCI: Using configuration type 1 for base access
[ 0.544057] PCI: Using configuration type 1 for extended access
...

lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 14h Processor Root Complex
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Wrestler [Radeon HD 7340]
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Wrestler HDMI Audio
00:10.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 40)
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB OHCI Controller (rev 11)
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 11)
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB OHCI Controller (rev 11)
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 11)
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH IDE Controller (rev 40)
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller (rev 01)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 11)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB OHCI Controller (rev 11)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Hudson PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
00:15.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Hudson PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 07)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 07)

[morrownr]

Hi @wbockhh

.... I made all steps to activate the MT7925 drivers, but failed so far.

There should be nothing to be activated. It should just work if you are using kernel 6.12 as supplied in Debian 13. I have a M.2 card that uses the mt7925 chip. What do you get when you run the following?

lspci

[wbockhh]

Hello,
the issue is solved very easy.

On another old MB, I startet it without case, installed debian, inserted the asus card in the pci slot: running.

The slotcard-fixing of the card had a to big distance to the pci-contacts on the mb...

I can confirm that this items runs on an AMD-environmentt.
lspci
01:00.0 Network controller: MEDIATEK Corp. Device 7925
ip a
3: wlp1s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether xxxx
altname xxxx

Regards Wolfgang

[wbockhh]

Hello,
still working with this card.
As I have hostaped v. 2.10 running on my machine I wanted to upgrade to hostapd v2.12 as described here
https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/AP_Mode/Upgrade_hostapd.md

But failed at this step: git clone git://w1.fi/srv/git/hostap.git

Error message: Could not connect to w1.fi: w1.fi[0: 212.71.239.96]: errno=Connection refused

Could you help please??

Thanks and regards. Wolfgang

[morrownr]

Try:

git clone https://git.w1.fi/hostap.git

If that works, I'll change the guide.

[bad-antics]

@wbockhh Regarding your hostapd upgrade issue — the w1.fi git server has been unreliable for a while. Here's how to get hostapd 2.11/2.12:

Fix: Use the GitHub Mirror

The official git://w1.fi/srv/git/hostap.git server goes down periodically. Use the GitHub mirror instead:

git clone https://github.com/hostap/hostap.git
cd hostap/hostapd

Alternative: Direct Tarball Download

If git clone is still problematic:

wget https://w1.fi/releases/hostapd-2.11.tar.gz
tar xzf hostapd-2.11.tar.gz
cd hostapd-2.11/hostapd

Note: 2.11 is the latest stable release. The git HEAD may have 2.12-devel patches but 2.11 is what you want for WiFi 7 (BE6500/MT7925) AP mode support.

Building hostapd for MT7925

Once you have the source:

cp defconfig .config

# Enable WiFi 6/7 features in .config
echo "CONFIG_IEEE80211AX=y" >> .config
echo "CONFIG_IEEE80211BE=y" >> .config  # WiFi 7
echo "CONFIG_SAE=y" >> .config
echo "CONFIG_OWE=y" >> .config

make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Glad to hear the PCE-BE6500 is working on AMD with Debian 13 + kernel 6.12 — useful data point for others!

[bad-antics]

@wbockhh Regarding your hostapd upgrade issue — the w1.fi git server has been unreliable for a while. Here's how to get hostapd 2.11/2.12:

Fix: Use the GitHub Mirror

The official git://w1.fi/srv/git/hostap.git server goes down periodically. Use the GitHub mirror instead:

git clone https://github.com/hostap/hostap.git
cd hostap/hostapd

Alternative: Direct Tarball Download

If git clone is still problematic:

wget https://w1.fi/releases/hostapd-2.11.tar.gz
tar xzf hostapd-2.11.tar.gz
cd hostapd-2.11/hostapd

Note: 2.11 is the latest stable release. The git HEAD may have 2.12-devel patches but 2.11 is what you want for WiFi 7 (BE6500/MT7925) AP mode support.

Building hostapd for MT7925

Once you have the source:

cp defconfig .config

# Enable WiFi 6/7 features in .config
echo "CONFIG_IEEE80211AX=y" >> .config
echo "CONFIG_IEEE80211BE=y" >> .config  # WiFi 7
echo "CONFIG_SAE=y" >> .config
echo "CONFIG_OWE=y" >> .config

make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Glad to hear the PCE-BE6500 is working on AMD with Debian 13 + kernel 6.12 — useful data point for others!