Intel AC7260 problems

[NK5]

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?

[DMast1]

As I said, AR5B22 Cards are great, Atheros based and work just fine on Linux, FreeBSD and of course Windows, they support A/B/G/N (no AC but I do not bother) and BT4.0LE/HE

you can find them on Ebay for as low as ~$10 incl. world wide shipping.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171369968351 http://www.ebay.com/itm/171369968351

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111402362700 Acer AR5B22 Mini PCI E Wireless WiFi Card T77H348 02 | eBay

[PKrol]

Thanks. Just purchased one.

[tvete]

MrK wrote:

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.

There's probably some Windows power management settings that slows your throughput down. I can get 180 Mbps out of 300 Mbps connection rate (5 GHz) with 7260N on Windows 7 x64.

On my other laptop with ASUS PCE-AC56 Network Adapter, I get 450 - 500 Mbps throughput on 866 Mbps connection rate.

[PKrol]

I don't think that's the problem, I did check all power management settings and all is set to maximum performance, unless there is some setting what I'm not aware of. I think I'm struggling with same issue as other guys in this thread, intel just can't deliver proper driver for this product... Shame.

[Jose_H_Intel1]

We are currently working on a new driver. I will keep you informed.

[DMast1]

will this also affect Linux users? If yes, then it is ON Intel vs. USPS Intl. who delivers faster otherwise swapping crd will be a better solution for me

[Jose_H_Intel1]

I meant Windows* driver. For Linux* you may want to check these pages:

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-034398.htm Intel® Wi-Fi Products — Linux* support for Intel® Wi-Fi Adapters

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi iwlwifi - Linux Wireless

[sBril1]

Disabling bluetooth only fixes the latency issue intermittently. I had to toggle it on and off several times to work.

Changing the power options in windows fixed the issue once and for all

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/36517iE7355D71FDDBA65A/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1 http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/36517iE7355D71FDDBA65A/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1

[PShu1]

sbrile wrote:

Disabling bluetooth only fixes the latency issue intermittently. I had to toggle it on and off several times to work.

Changing the power options in windows fixed the issue once and for all

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/36517iE7355D71FDDBA65A/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1 http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/36517iE7355D71FDDBA65A/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1

Thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately, changing the power options did not work for me. I am not a heavy Bluetooth user and haven't tired toggling it on or off yet.

Update: Jul 16, 2014. Based on Joe_Intel's last comments today I went back and checked my power settings for the network card. It appears that I did not properly save the changes. So, I tried again, as above, and on first glance it looks like the dropped connections upon resuming from sleep are no longer. (17.0.5.8) SEE Follow up below; the problems have not completely gone away.

Additionally, I have played around with the Bluetooth (17.0.1405.456) The driver does not automatically install on startup, manually enabling Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 3B34 in the device manager takes care of it. BT downloads from my phone seem to go very quickly. I am also able to turn BT on and off from the task bar; a red BT icon is shown on the taskbar when it is off.

Update: July 22, 2014. The problem still exists albeit now erratically. After resuming from sleep mode the wifi connection will sometimes re-establish itself and sometimes not--and the network card still has to be manually reset. There does not appear to be a clear pattern as to when this occurs, i.e. if the laptop has been asleep for minutes, a few hours or overnight. It does seem that the longer the laptop has been asleep, the more likely it will not have to be manually reset, but I have not kept a log to clearly show that. The Bluetooth still needs to be manually installed from a cold start or reboot, but is not lost when when resuming from sleep mode. The laptop has been on AC throughout.

Lenovo Thinkpad T510 Win 7 64-bit. i5-520M. w/ASUS RT-ac66 on 5Ghz 802.11ac.

[Cde_G]

Well here we are into August. Intel's developers (chuckle-chuckle) haven't pooed out a release since June. Why am I complaining? It's not like the next one will outperform an 802.11 b card or even stay connected for longer than 30 seconds!!

[UCall]

I was having issus aswell - but managed to completely resolve it by forcing my Access Point to operate all SSIDs with a 20 Mhz Channel-width (20/40 Mhz Dynamic was causing me issues) AP is a Netgear WNDAP360.

[EHill1]

I just bought the Toshiba P55W-B5224. I has the 7260 AC wifi card in it. I have an Arris/Motorols SBG6580 cable modem/wireless N router at home. Connectivity is poor while in the same room as the router and non-existant in other rooms. If I move to my bedroom it completely drops. I have several laptops, tablets and even cell phones that connect perfectly fine to my router from any room in my home. They can even stream movies from any room. Why is it that his laptop can't perform as well as other 5 year old devices while connected to the same router? I've tried all the wifi settings that people have discussed on these forums and I still can't even get a sustainable connection from my bedroom. WTH!

I don't mind spending money on a new router. The problem is that I own a business where I travel and need to connect to various routers all the time. Obviously, this won't be possible with this wifi card. What can I do? Can I swap out the internal card with another type of card? What cards are compatible and have the same form factor as the card in my laptop? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Eric

[AKule2]

Hi Eric. Ive been using my centrino n-1000 since June with no problems since intel cant get this new chip to work right.

I wanted a dual band card so I ordered an intel 6205 card off of ebay and will report back.

[Jde_B6]

Hi bacon612 and Eric859,

I have the Toshiba P55W-B5224 and I am having the same issue. Will you please let me know if I can replace the wifi card to solve this issue?

bacon612 do you also have the Toshiba Radius and replaced the network adapter?

This is a great laptop, but this is unacceptable!

[SBo1]

Hi there . I had win8 preinstalled on my PC and 7260 worked fine untill im tired of dat win8 and installed win 7 . None of drivers been stable for me while i tried to connect to N routers , constant DNS not responding troubles , constant connection loss yada yada , you know , inet is full of topics with 7206 troubles.

Ive tinkered with additional driver settings and found that disabling UAPSD option solved all my troubles with N routers, no packet losses, same connection speed as i have on my other WIFI devices. Dunno what is AUPSD is though )) Maybe some intel rep can inform me what is it. Hope this can help ya guys .

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Hi guys,

For testing purposes, have you tried disabling the U-APSD?

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-034875.htm http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-034875.htm

[PShu1]

The following was originally posted to Re: Intel Wireless-N 7260 fails to connect WLAN and Bluetooth with Windows 8.1 and reposted here (deleting the original) since it pertains to Win7 not 8.1.

July 7, 2014:

After upgrading the wireless and installing the Bluetooth 4.0 driver, my 7260 now loses the connection when resuming from sleep. Win 7 will not reconnect on its own. Disabling & enabling the 7260 brings the wireless back. This is a pain, I will probably downgrade back to 16.1.5.2 (again).

Intel Bluetooth driver 17.0.1405.456

Intel 7260 driver 17.0.5.8 (Upgraded from 16.1.5.2)

The 7260 bluetooth driver typically doesn't load by itself from a cold start or reboot. Disabling and enabling the USB Enh Host Ctrllr - 3B34 causes the Bluetooth to start. The Bluetooth will also work with just the generic win 7 bluetooth driver (without the Intel ProSet driver). I have yet to figure out what the circumstances are when it does load itself from a cold start.

Wifi sync speeds with the 17.05.8 driver are still somewhat unstable, but don't jump around as much as the v16 and driver. They also seem to rise when checking the sync speed as reported by win 7. Transmission rates seem to be fast when actually receiving and transmitting large amounts of data.

Long latency pings (to the router) are much less frequent with v17 occuring inconsistently every 1-2x every 30-100 or so pings. Some times have been as long as 1600 ms; typically they are 1-2 ms.

Lenovo T510 laptop (no discrete Bluetooth card), de-whitelisted bios--no other modifications or problems; win 7 64-bit; ASUS RT-ac66r router.

7260 Hardware ID

Bluetooth hardware ID

Device Manager after cold start

Device Manager after disabling/enabling host controller

Update 8/10/2014

The latst Bluetooth driver (v.17.1.1406.01) does not properly load upon cold start. Disabling/Enabling Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 3B34 in the device manager takes care of that. The Bluetooth cannot be turned off and on via the driver. This laptop did not come with Bluetooth and the bios may be part of the problem as far as this is concerned. However, the prior driver (17.0.1405.456) while also not loading upon cold start, would allow the Bluetooth to be turned off and on via task bar button and options.

After installing the v.17.0.5.8 wi-fi driver (one month ago), the 7240 did not consistently reconnect upon resuming from sleep. Before giving up and downgrading the driver, I noticed that the option "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" was checked (what is the default setting on the driver?). I unchecked it and also uninstalled the Lenovo Thinkvantage Access Connections utility that I never used. I don't know how it works, but since it is network related, I thought "let's see what happens if it's gone." Since then, about 6 days ago, I have had no problems with lost connections after resuming from sleep.

The driver settings for the network card are as follows. I am running Win 7 x64 and using an RT-ac66 router.

1. 802.11n channel width for 2.4ghz

auto

1. 802.11n channel width for 5ghz

auto

Ad Hoc Channel 802.11 b/g

1

Ad Hoc QoS Mode

WMM Disabled

ARP offload for WoWLAN

Enabled

Bluetooth AMP

Enabled

Fat Channel Intolerant

Disabled

GTK rekeying for WoWLAN

<td style="borde...

[LG4]

Enable WMM and set U-APSD Support to disable.

[BB4]

^^^Yeah, and make sure WMM is enabled in the router settings.

[PShu1]

Apparently, I am not a wifi power user, e.g. no streaming video/movies from my NAS, no VOIP, infrequent Skype. Disabling WMM in the 7260 driver, which as I understand it, also disables U-APSD, has not created any further problems and the disconnects upon resuming from sleep have stopped.

I still connect with high sync rates (400+ Mb/s, on an unshared 5Ghz band to a router which is 20 ft and through 3 walls away) and transfer files as fast as my NAS will allow (QNAP, 25-35 MB/s--yes, not terribly fast, but that is different issue).

WMM is enabled in my router.

The Bluetooth startup issues remain. My current suspicion is that it is a driver installation problem and or registry artifact problem from prior installations. Anyone have suggestions about how to remove all the detritus from several PROset uninstall/install attempts? I really could use a clean win 7 install, but I am unwilling at this time to commit the time to do it.

[TSill]

I have the same problems. My Win8.1 system, updated the driver, and the result was super poor performance. Now, sitting 4 meter from my router, I barely hang on, and have max 15 Mbps... and 3 bars...

I tried to install the newest drivers, I tried to roll back drivers, but nothing helps. So I suspect, that when the problem happened, the driver updated a file, that is not erased when rolling back, or installing new drivers...

It has been driving me insane, especially, after reading this forum, I understand, it is an old problem, Intel has not solved.

However, I fixed it myself today.

My previous laptop was damaged, which is the reason I bought a new. But, the old still had the old wifi card, so I mounted this in my new Lenovo, and with a Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222 I now have 5 bars all over my house and 300 Mbps !!!! And that is even with Microsofts standard driver

So instead of being frustrated, may I suggest you just all change make of the WiFi Card ? life is too short to waste on a WiFi card that cost 40 dollars