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Intel AC7260 problems

NK5
Beginner
58,027 Views

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?

314 Replies
KPent
Beginner
1,468 Views

I am currently circumventing the problem at home using a powerline adapter but I will avoid machines with this card like the pest. And will spread the word...

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DGlav
Beginner
1,468 Views

Haven't gotten any problems since installing 17.0.1.19 , on a network that is described by the regular users as "quirky" and it's also stable on my home network (don't game trough it though, as Lan is the way to go there).

16.xx didn't work that well for me, at home it was fine, but at work it would disconnect every so often after getting slow as bricks (the wifi connection).

I'm coming from a "Killer 1103", which was OK with 2.4 Ghz, but failed miserably with 5.0 :/ couldn't see networks after the first connection (which it dropped after a couple of seconds).

Laptop is a Alienware M17x R4, which is about 2 years and 2 months old now. Had to remove the Dell bluetooth module though, as it conflicted with the Intel driver :/

I'm not using the proset software, just the drivers.

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Jose_H_Intel1
Employee
1,468 Views

The article below can guide you to the advanced properties of the wireless adapter and the description of its settings.

It is recommended to use 20MHz channel width for the 2.4 GHz band.

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-025393.htm Intel® Wi-Fi Products — What are the advanced Wi-Fi adapter settings?

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KPent
Beginner
1,468 Views

With 2.4Ghz 802.11n width set to 20MHz, GTK rekeying and U-APSD disabled, the speed has gone up to ~1Mb/s. However, on my 4 year old laptop I get 16Mb/s easily on the same network, from the very same location. Adapter still doesn't feel satisfactory or useful...

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IPetk
Beginner
1,468 Views

Hello,

After struggling more than a day on the latency issue with AC7260, it looks like i found the cause in my machine (Lenovo Y50). Right now I'm using the latest driver from Intel Download Center (17.1.0.19) with small changes: Ad Hoc QoS Mode (WMM) - Disabled, U-APSD - Disabled (but this should not mater). Running Windows7 found that when the adapter is scanning for networks it then creates additional latency (up to ~2600 ms) and then goes back to normal (~ 1 ms) reported when pinging to the AP (D-Link 850L).

So what i did - disabled the background network scans when I'm already connected to the AP. Found this article useful explaining the issue: http://www.ghacks.net/2011/12/13/how-to-disable-wlan-background-scans/ How To Disable WLAN Background Scans - gHacks Tech News and finally the "WLAN Optimizer" program solved my problems! http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/ http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/

Hope it helps the others having the same issue.

Cheers,

Ilian

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JLoui
Beginner
1,468 Views

Seems there is something interesting I have found:

Product Brief for 7260AC Dual Band:

Now the new Intel 7265AC (apparently Broadwell 5th gen only, have not seen anyone who has it, but the product brief says low power modes....Microsoft InstantGo????)

Hope its not a hardware only fix to be implemented in 5th gen systems, what happens to everyone on 4th gen haswell??????

Could it be the Intel Power Optimizer????

I just upgraded my Vaio Pro from the stock 7260 to a 7260AC Dual Band M.2 card, experiencing same issues people are reporting, wake from sleep 17 series drivers, Error Code 43. Revert to 16x series seems fine but instead of over 40MB/sec transfer, down to around 20-30MB/sec. Intel does need to sort it out, Vaio Pro (Sony) had lots of complaints from this during initial release. Seems the stock 7260 non AC has had alot of work done to make it work properly, but not the AC variant?

I just want it solved so no resetting, no redetect, just make it work like it should!

Cheers,

Jase

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DHopa
Beginner
1,468 Views

The best option I found is to use unofficial drivers:

I have a lot of 19 laptops with that card. The uses could not logon to domain because it was not connecting to wi-fi. Only troubleshooting was helping if you were lucky.

The laptops are now connecting to wi-fi within 15-20 sec from logon screen. The connection seems to be stable too.

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DHopa
Beginner
1,468 Views

I forgot to add:

  • I changed channel bonding on 2.4GHz network to 20MHz
  • Left HT On
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SBo1
Novice
1,468 Views

Bluetooth is absolutely unstable on my 7260 .. I got BT mouse to free up ports and it disconnects every 5-10 minutes , i need to turn off-on BT module. Its a crap . I had an idea to buy 6230 but looks like it has problems too ..

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KVsrd
Beginner
1,468 Views

I have the same problem with the network drop and horrible speed with my Lenovo Y50. Before I used to enjoy 5GHz and high speed, but now the ping is skyrocketing once or twice a minute, and 2,4Ghz network is 1/3 of the speed I get with 5Ghz, but it's doesn't drop the network that often.

I'm totally pissed on Intel for this network card, because it's horrible and all the drivers they put in doesn't seem to help at all. I try to contact both Lenovo and my webshop for advise, but nobody bothers to answer me. Nice to see that I'm not the only one with this network card and this issue tho.. I would like to demand Intel to give me a new and DIFFERENT network card so I can enjoy my PC in peace.

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DGlav
Beginner
1,468 Views

I seem not to have had any problems since my last post, except for the AP failing three times (it was there, but none of my clients could connect to it and it kept disappearing from all the clients visible networks).

My home AP is a Asus RT-AC66U and at my work they use some TP-Link wa901nd (don't know if it's a V1 or V2 though)

I haven't connected trough WiFi to my Asus in a while though, but it used to be fine, so I suppose it's still working ok.

Are there some test I could do to see exactly how well it is working?

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KVsrd
Beginner
1,468 Views

My test are pretty simple:

connect wireless to the router, start command line i windows and start pinging a website. In my case, it's ping vg.no -t . Suddenly I will see the the number go from 35ms to 2-300ms for the next 3 or 4 pings, then back to 35ms. This is a brutal lag in the games I play, and very annoying. This happen both for 2,4Ghz and 5,2Ghz networks.

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tvete
Valued Contributor II
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kazzkizz wrote:

I have the same problem with the network drop and horrible speed with my Lenovo Y50. Before I used to enjoy 5GHz and high speed, but now the ping is skyrocketing once or twice a minute, and 2,4Ghz network is 1/3 of the speed I get with 5Ghz, but it's doesn't drop the network that often.

I'm totally ****** on Intel for this network card, because it's horrible and all the drivers they put in doesn't seem to help at all. I try to contact both Lenovo and my webshop for advise, but nobody bothers to answer me. Nice to see that I'm not the only one with this network card and this issue tho.. I would like to demand Intel to give me a new and DIFFERENT network card so I can enjoy my PC in peace.

My test are pretty simple:

connect wireless to the router, start command line i windows and start pinging a website. In my case, it's ping vg.no -t . Suddenly I will see the the number go from 35ms to 2-300ms for the next 3 or 4 pings, then back to 35ms. This is a brutal lag in the games I play, and very annoying. This happen both for 2,4Ghz and 5,2Ghz networks.

Not all 7260s are problematic. Mine sure works PERFECTLY FAST AND STABLE AND NO PING MASSIVE SPIKES. Pinging google.com 500 times doesn't result to ping spikes to over 50 ms. My connection never drops as well. I'm running the latest 17.12 drivers and all is perfect. I blame it not on Intel but on the congested radio environment. My environment is reasonably occupied with seven 2.4 GHz radios and two 5 Ghz radios including mine:

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DGlav
Beginner
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Ok, so I've been running multiple tests with ping -n 500.

Just to be clear, this is my exact home setup.

Cable modem going to the router (Asus RT-AC66U) with a Cat 5e cable of about 15 meters, unshielded.

The router is set up as my private AP, no one else has acces to it and I disabled all my other clients except for my laptop (Alienware M17x R4, with a Intel AC 7260, it's running on Windows 7 and Bluetooth has been disabled trough the taskbar), there is only one LAN port in use, which feeds into a Netgear Prosafe GS105 (5 port Gbit switch with a total throughput of 10 Gbit if I may believe the spec sheet, induced ping at Gbit specs should be max 2 ms).

All ports of the switch are occupied, with 3 feeding directly into other pc's (my Alienware, a Acer laptop I use as remote device and a desktop which is off at the moment), all these clients have Gbit ports. The 5th port goes into another switch towards the rest of the network, but since no traffic is going there for the test it is irrelevant.

My first tests were to google.nl (me being dutch, the .nl domain should be closer than .com)

5.0 Ghz: minimum 12 ms, max 28 ms, average 15 ms.

Somewhat of a bumpy ride, but + 25 ms occurrences were rare

2.4 Ghz: minimum 12 mz, max 62 ms, average 16 ms.

rather bumpy ride, with quite some 35 ms occurrences and rarely higher than 36.

One packet out of 500 was lost.

LAN: minimum 11 ms, max 26, average 13 ms.

Also not perfect, but it was really rare to see a bump above 25 ms, closest to 5 Ghz in my opinion.

Whilst testing with a LAN cable I imagined there were too many variables, namely the modem, the ISP and the WAN to LAN link in the router itself.

Since the Acer laptop is basically doing nothing I decided to ping that 500 times trough the LAN, since only the Netgear switch isn't being utilized to the max it should have enough room not to be too much of a hurdle during the test.

LAN: minimum 0 ms, maximum 7 ms, average 1 ms.

Some bumps every now and then, but usually only 1 or 2 ms (probably something trying to access the internet for a moment on the Alienware or the Acer I suppose), one odd 7 ms spike and some 3 or 4 ms ones.

2.4 Ghz: minimum 1 ms, maximum 65 ms, average 2 ms.

Not even that much of a bumpy ride, mostly 1 ms responses with 2 ms also appearing a lot. Some bumps of 3 to 5 ms, but I guess that's just WiFi.

There were regular 12 to 25 ms bumps though quite some time within close proximity of each other and a small number of 35 to 60 ms ones.

It is not something I'd prefer to game on :/

5.0 Ghz: minimum 1 ms, maximum 259 ms, average 2 ms.

Other than the massive spike it was rather stable, only a tad behind the LAN connection.

The spike was odd though, it was a ping of 125, followed by a 44 one, 1 and the 259 ms one. it was the only time it came above 2 ms :s

To complete it I've also tested how the router influences it all.

LAN: minimum 1 ms, maximum 10 ms, average 1 ms.

Quite similar to the LAN connection to the Acer laptop, with it losing probably only 0.5 ms due to the switch and the LAN connection of the router itself, nothing spectacular really.

5.0 Ghz: minimum 1 ms, maximum 10 ms, average 1 ms.

Nearly identical to LAN, lost one package out of 500 though and one spike of 3 ms other than the 10 ms one.

Odd that there wasn't a massive spike like the previous 5.0 Ghz test :s

2.4 Ghz: minimum 1 ms, maximum 234 ms, average 3 ms.

Regular spikes of 10+ ms with quite a number of 25+ ones, I seem to have missed the 234 ms one though :/

My guess would be that there is quite some lag induced in the WiFi to LAN/WAN transition which amplifies the spikes.

5.0 Ghz seems to be working rather fine as far as my setup goes, aside from the odd spike in the second 5.0 Ghz test.

2.4 Ghz is riddled with spikes for some reason. I don't think most would be noticed during normal internet usage, but during gaming I suspect you could certainly notice them.

At the end I've quickly checked the spot I'm sitting at with WiFi analyser ( on a HTC one M7 with the latest updates) and the channel I'm using seems to be clear of other AP's (reinforced concrete walls help somewhat with this and manually setting the AP channels).

The AC's driver is 17.1.0.19 btw.

Ps.

@Intel people.

If you want/need me to test something else give me a PM.

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KVsrd
Beginner
1,473 Views

The ping issue got fixed by doing the steps in the registery from this link:

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idata
Employee
1,473 Views

I don't think it has anything to do with network saturation. I'm currently the ONLY one in my neighborhood that is utilizing the 5ghz band, and I have these issues all the time - regardless how far away or where my router is located. Exact same issue at work, where I can't even count the 5ghz networks in reach. Performance is just fine in either place, until you hit these spikes. Sometimes they result in connection drops, most of the time "just" crazy long lags. I notice these lags even during regular web browsing if I happen to try access a page when they happen.

This card is nothing but garbage... I wish intel would refund me the $35 or whatever I paid for it. Obviously they are not able to fix this issue.

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idata
Employee
1,473 Views

The registry "fix" does indeed help, I do not see ping spikes anymore, either. The downside is that the list of available wifi networks doesn't update, which really sucks... Better than constant connection drops and lags...

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tvete
Valued Contributor II
1,473 Views

TomB wrote:

The registry "fix" does indeed help, I do not see ping spikes anymore, either. The downside is that the list of available wifi networks doesn't update, which really sucks... Better than constant connection drops and lags...

I didn't need to edit the registry just to not have ping spikes. At least your issue is resolved. Once you associate, you won't need to scan for networks unless you prefer automatic roaming while on the move which never works well anyways.

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Jose_H_Intel1
Employee
1,473 Views

Intel® PROSet Wireless Software version 17.12 should be available from your http://www.intel.com/support/oems.htm system manufacturer's (OEM's) website.

If this version is not available on their site we suggest asking the OEM for it.

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idata
Employee
1,473 Views

Is there a way to get this version from intel directly? My machine did not come with this card, I purchased it separately. intel.com seems to have only 17.1.0...

Found the 17.12 driver on the lenovo website. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve any of my issues. Still getting crazy ping spikes. Don't know if it would solve dropped connections as I haven't tested it long enough yet.

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ARosc1
Novice
1,473 Views

Hello,

I am having issues with my AC7260NGW. I see most users report that they have ping issues, but I never really see anything about overall connection speed. I recently purchased a new MSI Ghost Pro 052. This came with the M.2 form factor of this card and hasn't really been working very well from the start. I've done various speedtests and can confirm that it's not my AP as others in my household have no issues. Usually my download speed is around 4-6mbps and upload at around 20mbps, but sometimes lower, at 7mbps. My brother has his laptop in the same room as I and he gets around 40-70mbps on his Killer Wireless 1102n (I think). I should also mention that I'm on Windows 8.1 64-bit.

I was thinking of buying a Killer card to replace this one, but I realize that Killer doesn't make their card in this M.2 form factor... so I'm kind of SOL there and need to find a way to make this AC7260 work. I have the latest 17.12 drivers, though MSI doesn't carry them right now. I've tried various drivers and nothing seems to want to give me good download speeds. I've ping'd my router as well. All requests come back at 1ms with no latency issues like some users are reporting. Also, users are reporting connection drops. I maintain my connection fine, but when I try to do a Skype call, the call drops out and lags horribly. Online gaming is near impossible as well.

One thing I found kind of odd was that in the Advanced settings for it, I can only select 20mhz as the Channel Width. 40mhz is never there, even though it should be as my router (ASUS RT AC66U) is broadcasting the 5ghz band. Any advice on this?

Update:

I was doing some more testing and found that close to the router (like 8 feet away), I got about 80mbps, but that's to be expected. I know the card isn't broken, but it must have issues with range or something. 10 more feet away from that, upstairs, and all the sudden my 2.4ghz speed is 4mbps and 5ghz is non-existent (around .2mbps). This makes no sense at all. As I mentioned before, my brother's laptop, running on the Killer gets 40mbps in the same location. Another thing I did out of frustration is uninstalled the ProSet software and drivers, reboot, and let Windows 8.1 install its own. After that I did another test and my wifi speeds near the router were at 113mbps. Well, yeah that's great, but what's the point of having wireless if I have to be next to the router? I might as well just plug into the ethernet then. I've yet to test the default Windows 8.1 drivers in my room again. I'll report back when I do. I'm still looking for advice on this. I'm seriously thinking of just buying an external USB adapter, even though I really don't want to. It seems unnecessary though. I don't understand how (if it IS a driver issue) how you could release hardware without having working drivers. It boggles me...

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