Re: Intel AC7260 problems - Page 8

NK5 · ‎09-17-2013

Hi there, I just excitedly bought 3 AC7260 cards for all our laptops in the house cause we upgraded our router to the RT-AC66U and let me tell you I am soooooo NOT impressed with these cards. They are horrible, I cannot keep a consistent connection with my router.

Computer # 1 is a Dell 7720 running windows 8 and all I keep getting is constant unable to access network page errors that only say on a chrome web page:

Error code: ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED

In my intel event viewer I get around 3 lines marked Information..... authenticating wireless profile XXXXX every minute!!!!!! This can't be right???

Computer # 2 is an XPS 15 running windows 7 home and I get the same problems as computer # 1 just not as many chrome ERR pages.

Computer # 3 is an Alienware M18 and it consistantly drops the wireless connection too. I had a bigfoot card in there previously and NEVER had any problems with losing wireless connections.

I'm using all the latest newest drivers on all my laptops and i just can't believe how troublesome these 7260's are. Anyone else actually have a 7260 thats rock solid and if so, how did you do it?

vkotl · ‎05-12-2014

OK this driver seems to be good the ping spikes look like they have dropped finally need more time so I can check check with other routers as well

idata · ‎05-12-2014

This is weird. It seems like the ping times with this new driver have reversed, but only for the first few minutes. I got consistently pretty bad ping times on my LAN , with occasional good ones. Pinging even my ASUS RT-AC66U router directly took a whopping 50 ms or so on average.

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Fast forward a few minutes and now everything seems great! I still see the ping spikes with laggy TCP connections, but it seems like they are happening far less frequent. I have not observed any dropped connections, although it seems like that problem was solved with the BIOS/Firmware update I installed just a few days ago. I have not yet disabled uAPSD.

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I will reboot now and see if these slow ping times happen every time for the first few minutes, or if it was just a fluke right after installing the new driver.

idata · ‎05-12-2014

Yep, happened again after a reboot. I started as quickly as I could, and it seemed like it took some 4-5 minutes until pings became good. And right when that happened, I had a lost ping. I wonder if I would have lost my SSH session, unfortunately I didn't have one open...

...

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Request timed out.

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idata · ‎05-12-2014

And this is what happens when you enable the wifi driver. Pings start out good, a few seconds later become consistently high, and then a bite more than a minute later turn good again. This time it didn't take 4-5 minutes, though. It had one really bad ping spike, but no lost connection.

PING: transmit failed. General failure.

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tvete · ‎05-12-2014

@ TomB

Without performing those ping test, do you get kicked out of 3D games or video stream just suddenly buffers?

I got another laptop with that came with Atheros then upgraded to 7260AC but sadly enough it doesn't perform as good as my other laptop with orginal OEM supplied 7260. I swapped the 7260 with ASUS PCE-AC56 and bought a refurb ASUS AC66U router and WiFi problems are now gone plus I get 866.5 Mbps 90% of the time on that computer.

idata · ‎05-17-2014

Well, I can't speak about gaming because I don't, but yeah I used to lose TCP connections frequently. However, it seems like a BIOS update for my machine fixed this problem, because I no longer experience this. I still get ping spikes and when they happen TCP connections are rather laggy, even with the latest driver.

idata · ‎05-17-2014

Also, these periods of high ping times over several minutes appear to happen every once in a while, too. Not just after enabling the adapter. It's just weird. There is almost NO other traffic on the network, and I'm not even doing anything like streaming or downloading a bunch of stuff...

idata · ‎05-17-2014

I retract my earlier statement of ping spikes occurring far less frequent. They happen just as frequent with the latest driver, and the side effects are the same. While I don't lose TCP connections anymore (seems to be fixed by Dell's most recent BIOS/Firmware update), they are still quite laggy during ping spikes.

Also, disabling uAPSD did not make any difference for me. It's just as bad.

vkotl · ‎05-18-2014

i posted previously that ping spikes are gone. but the ping spikes are still there. most useless wifi card i ever bought . its so frustrating. the ping is 1ms all the time and every 4 mins or so its shoots to 300 or 400ms giving lag in gaming and video. worst card

tvete · ‎05-18-2014

Do you get kicked out of the server? Does your video suddenly stutter when you view a streaming video (provided you have 50% more available internet bandwidth than the streaming video required)?

vkotl · ‎05-18-2014

no it doesnt kick out. there is a huge lag in gaming and live video streaming when bandwidth avaliable is far greater than 50 percent

tvete · ‎05-18-2014

There's a reason for those ping spikes. Intel specifically designed their drivers to scan for AP at around 3 - 5 minute range in order to roam seamlessly. This is good for those who are very mobile and in an enterprise setting. However, this would be bad for people who want to lock in to their AP and never scan again. Windows WLAN Autoconfig isn't the fault here since MS fixed it with WIndows 7, 8 and 8.1 where Windows would never scan unless the "connect to more preferable network if available" is checked

Here's a tip for Intel: Add a friggin option to disable "Scan for APs when associated" unless the user forces the scan by clicking on the WiFi icon! Better yet, as a default behaviour, the driver should be smart enough to figure that there's streaming going on so the driver shouldn't scan unless the signal is -70 to -80dbm. Well, the signal part is included as "roaming aggressiveness" but the "don't scan while streaming packets" isn't implemented here.

I wish I know how to code these drivers and those two things should fix those ping spikes every 3 to 5 minute issue.

tvete · ‎05-18-2014

So I've been testing the ASUS PCE-AC56 802.11ac Network Adapter that works beautifully on my other laptop where as the 7260AC gets lag spikes and limited connection as vai and others noted. The default Dual Band 7260N on my primary laptop still works really well (no ping spikes over 10ms when pinging the router 500 times) but I'll replaced that soon with another ASUS 802.11ac Network card primarily for AC connection. The thing I notice with Intel cards is that it works perfectly to only some laptops while it sucks on others (my other laptop for example). On my other laptop with the ASUS 802.11ac, I get the same excellent ping result as my 7260N when pinging the router 500 times:

idata · ‎05-19-2014

I'm not convinced this is entirely a driver issue. The same thing happens when I run ubuntu. To me it seems like it's either a firmware issue or a hardware issue. Either way, I'm a little disappointed that Intel doesn't appear to be capable of fixing this. How can they possibly have released such a POS product?

tvete · ‎05-19-2014

I also think that some batches of 7260s are have quality issues leading to erratic WiFi performance. If all of the 7260s that are produced are bad, I wouldn't be very pleased with the Dual Band 7260N's performance on my primary laptop. It's like on the 6235 thread that when the OEM supplier agreed to replace with the same 6235 card (it was probably a later manufactured batch), their WiFi problems went away. I guess that's what we get from outsourcing the manufacturing to China.

DMast1 · ‎06-22-2014

it is most likely a firmware issue

I have made a simple log from my AP

http://pastebin.com/ENnkgUjN Sun Jun 22 09:44:49 2014 daemon.info hostapd: wlan0: STA 80:86:f2:26:bb:ff IEEE - Pastebin.com

3 Clients connected, a Nexus 5, an Acer Notebook with Atheros ath9k a/b/g/n card and my Intel AC 7260.

The AC card is completly off the hook and I am having connection hangs all the time, all other devices are just fine, they rekey every 10minutes and are otherwise just connected.

The driver of the Intel WiFi card does not see anything of all those reauthes the card does.

This issue does exists with any AP that has 802.11n eneabled.

wlan0 ESSID: "MyAP"

Access Point: 64:66:B3:xx:xx:xx

Mode: Master Channel: 11 (2.462 GHz)

Tx-Power: 18 dBm Link Quality: 61/70

Signal: -49 dBm Noise: -95 dBm

Bit Rate: 170.5 MBit/s

Encryption: WPA2 PSK (CCMP)

Type: nl80211 HW Mode(s): 802.11bgn

Hardware: AR9341 [ath9k MAC80211]

TX power offset: 2 dBm

Frequency offset: 0 kHz

Supports VAPs: yes PHY name: phy0

which is my AP iwinfo

and iw list http://pastebin.com/EWb21vtV Wiphy phy0 max # scan SSIDs: 4 max scan IEs length: 2257 bytes Coverage cl - Pastebin.com

tvete · ‎06-22-2014

Try using 5 GHz band. The drivers are riddled with bugs at 2.4 GHz band until Intel fixes this issue. 5 GHz band is extremely fast and stable

DMast1 · ‎06-22-2014

yeah, I have 5GHz, but not everywhere (range is limited)

Why on earth can Intel not simply make a WiFi product that works?

Thank god I can simply switch my wifi card, I just ordered an AR5B22 to replace the intel card.

I have the atheros card running in 2 other devices and swapped them in ~20 other devices of friends... they work like a charm on 2.4 and 5 GHz and also have BT4.0 integrated, for ~10 bucks.

And the best of all, firmware and driver for linux are free and working very well, and windows never had any hiccups so far.

WIth Intel cards I had nothing but trouble, be it the 7260 or 6235 or even 4965AGN, the only one that actually somwhat worked fine, was a 5300.

since I simply need a working network connection I will switch cards.. got a 1800€ notebook and the connection is worse than on a 250€ netbook with AR5B22 card

I actually just ordered 3 of them for $20 incl. shipping to Europe, anyone who wants a 7260 (AC model)?

sBril1 · ‎06-23-2014

Turning off bluetooth fixed my latency problem. running 8.1 on a Lenovo X1 Carbon (2nd gen).

Bluetooth interferes with the wireless 2.4 Ghz signal. says so on Lenovo's website....

"Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radio are both operating on the same 2.4 GHz band. When both of them are used simultaneously, you may see slower communication speed and/or reduced communication range caused by radio interference."

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS036007 Intel Wireless LAN (11abgn, 11bgn, 11ac) for Windows 8.1 (64-bit), 8 (64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad

DMast1 · ‎06-24-2014

this is however no solution, since my keyboard and mouse are both connected via BT, so deactivating BT is no option at all

Also it does not seem to fix the "reconnect" issues I am seeing with my AC 7260

so far replacing the card is the only viable option, and the new cards are already on the way...

since I have never ever had any problems whatsoever with the AR5B22 card I will simply stick with them, they perform very good and BT+WiFi on both bands is no issue.

They do however not support any AC and ath10k cards are still VERY rare and impossible to get standalone...but I get ~20MB/s ~210MBit/s real speed and weeks of connection time without any disconnect with those card... and that is more or less all I need.

PKrol · ‎07-09-2014

Hi all,

I just joined the club of AC7260 :/ My 10 years old laptop performs better...

@ 5GHz, with 300Mbps connection my top download speed is about ~50Mbps and I'm sitting 2m away of the router. Running latest driver, win 7 pro 64bit.

BTW anyone knows the alternative to AC7260 (including BT)? This just drives me crazy, I already spent good few hours of my life trying resolve the problem, but as I see I can do nothing really except swap it to something what actually works.