Intel AC-8260 on Windows 10 - connectivity difficulties

[RHack1]

Hello,

I have a new laptop that includes the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 network adapter, and have been having a persistent issue with my wireless connection stopping responding. This is on Windows 10 (10.0.10856)

The symptoms are that the connection still appears to remain active (so the network indicator in Windows reports that the connection is still active) and I can see continuing "sent" activity in the wifi status dialog, but "received" activity is minimal and web browsers report no connection and/or DNS errors. I can readily re-establish a connection by disconnecting and reconnecting immediately (or disabling and re-enabling wifi), but the frequency of this issue is becoming very frustrating. There doesn't appear to be any specific interval at which this occurs and it seems to be very variable - it can recur within minutes, or at other times be a few hours before it happens. No other devices on the same network have any similar issue.

I've tried using both the manufacturer-provided and latest version (18.40.0) of the drivers, but the issue is the same with both. I've even gone as far as a clean Windows reinstall, but am having the same issue.

Any advice as to how I might be able to resolve this would be very much appreciated!

[MdeHa1]

Hi All, I have exactly the same issue with the same wireless adapter and Windows operating system. From time to time the connection is indicating that there is no internet connection and it cannot resolve using DNS but it is sending the traffic (I verified in Wireshark). I confirm that the issue only occurs when connected to 5ghz Wifi band and not the 2.4ghz connection. This explains why RHACK can work with the distant Access Point because the 5ghz reach is not that far. The funny thing is that I had this issue yesterday the whole day and checked on the access point that I was connected to the 5ghz channel, today suddenly it works perfect because I am connected to the 2.4ghz band. I definitely believe that there is an incompatibility issue with this Intel wireless lan adapater and 5ghz frequency. If RHACK also can confirm he uses a single SSID / name for both 2.4gnz and 5ghz then we know it for sure. The adapater should work with 5ghz according to the specifications but it has issues as far as I have seen in my tests (I am also a senior IT network engineer). Hope this helps I will report this as hardware malfunctioning and see what the warrently can do here.

[MdeHa1]

its so funny and 100% reproducable again had the same issue today and connected to 5ghz again, my phone was working excellent on the same frequency so its not a modem issue for sure. I walked away from the Access Point so it would automatically switch to 2.4ghz because of the distance, after that it worked fine again, so the specific problem here with the Intel adapter is more about roaming between 2.4ghz and 5ghz frequencies, when it stays on 2.4ghz it works but when it switches to 5ghz it wont work and will indicate a DNS issue but still be connected to the wifi.