MT7925 WiFi 7 MLO breaks connectivity on 7.1.x (mt76 regression)

Issues & Assistance
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1

I hope this helps. I am not a Linux professional, but I was able to narrow down the issue. My current workaround is acceptable for me.

After upgrading to linux-cachyos 7.1.x and linux-firmware 20260519, my MT7925 WiFi 7 (802.11be) adapter shows intermittent full network connectivity freezes when Multi-Link Operation (MLO) is active.

The issue is reproducible within ~10 minutes of normal usage when MLO is enabled.

The WiFi connection remains visually connected and the link quality is good, but all network traffic stops working (no ARP replies, no ICMP, gateway unreachable). At the time of failure, the wireless link remains connected (iw shows active connection), but Layer 2 traffic breaks completely (ARP resolution fails).

Reloading the mt7925e kernel module immediately restores connectivity and the system remains stable for the next ~10 minutes.

Disabling multi-link operation by forcing the connection to 5 GHz only (802.11 wireless band “a”) completely prevents the issue.

The issue only occurs when Multi-Link Operation (MLO) is active (802.11be WiFi 7 with multiple links such as 5 GHz + 6 GHz).

System:

OS: CachyOS
Kernel: linux-cachyos 7.1.1-2
Base kernel series: 7.1.x
WiFi: MediaTek MT7925 (mt7925e, mt76)
Firmware: linux-firmware 20260519

2

I can also reproduce this on my X870E Aorus Elite Wifi 7 rev 1.0 (MT7925).

We swapped to a new router yesterday (FritzBox 5690 Pro) because the old router broke. I then started my PC and did a whole system update (to potentially resolve another unrelated issue I had). The system update went fine.

After rebooting the PC, I noticed the connection issues, where after 1-3 minutes the communication won’t work (so not even the router page would open), but the connection stays active.

I don’t have any experience with the previous kernel (apart from the 5 minutes where I did the update), but I also landed on the same solution/workaround (of forcing 5 GHz only) after 1.5 hours of troubleshooting.

3

After installing all updates today, I reverted my workaround, but the issue still persists. @CachyOS Team, if you need any additional details, let me know and I’ll provide the requested logs.