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Intel AC7260 problems

NK5
Beginner
58,005 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
tvete
Valued Contributor II
2,914 Views

mpelley92 wrote:

theveterans, have you tried checking the consistency of your connection? For example, open two command prompt windows. One to ping Google's server, 8.8.8.8 and the other to ping your gateway (for me, 192.168.0.1). Make sure to set the number of times to ping to a high number and the timeout to something like 60 seconds. For example, 'ping 8.8.8.8 -n 99999 -w 60000'.

Do this and try streaming Youtube, watching netflix, playing an online game or something else that requires 100% connectivity.

As an added stress test, try streaming music from a bluetooth device at the same time. When I do all these things, I get ping times of 50-50000ms from my notebook to the gateway, which should always be either 1ms or <1ms.

Of course it would increase latency no matter how good the adapter. It's the nature of WiFi and QoS. I believe that the more consistent packets you send over the air, the higher the jitters will be. Also, WMM QoS would be a huge factor here as it will prioritize streaming packets and put the round-trip packet pinging test to a low priority. However, even with increased latency of least prioritized command prompt ping from 1 ms to 20ms with spikes to 100 to 150ms, there should be minimal network lag experience on the high priority packets like YouTube, DLNA video/music streaming, gaming and VoIP. Yes I get the cmd ping spikes to 100 ms on pinging gateway test when doing multiple activities such as multiple streaming while downloading but I never buffered nor have interruptions with my local NAS streaming, YouTube/Netflix/Silverlight streaming when doing multiple things at once. Spikes of 50000/ping timeouts are not normal at all, I think the router might also cause this interruption. Try performing the same stress test on another device with Atheros or Broadcom wifi and see if you get ping timeouts. If both get the same results, it's the router.

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MPell5
Novice
2,914 Views

Ah right ahead of you:

I have no proof at this moment in time, but I have tried these tests on another laptop with a different card. The other card would get spikes between 1-200ms but it didn't cause any interruptions. My laptop on the other hand had spikes of 0.01s to 25 seconds at a time (most of the pings would timeout for a few minutes after if they were bad enough). It basically halted internet connectivity. I tried turning off bluetooth at first, but it does nothing. This has been happening since the beginning of time with my notebook but it's only now that I can actually see it happen in front of my eyes.

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tvete
Valued Contributor II
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Sudden, infrequent irregular spikes to 100-200 ms is normal for WiFi, but what's not is when this affects whatever application you're working on currently. Basically, when there's a packet loss, or latency above 300ms, that's when live streaming gets interrupted. You do have wifi adapter problem being erratic. Some people here have noted that replacing the adapter with the revised version fixed their problems though. Then again, it's unreasonable to open up a brand new laptop for a WiFi antenna check/Wifi card replacement.

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MPell5
Novice
2,914 Views

theveterans,

This is exactly my point. It's unreasonable why this is happening. I didn't think it was like a reputable company like Intel to make such a mistake and completely overlook these issues before releasing a card. It makes me doubt Intel and makes me very weary of what I purchase from them in the future. Not only that but when someone asks me what I think of Intel from now on, I will have nothing good to say because of these experiences. It's even worse that they refuse to help or even troubleshoot their own device.

I'm disgusted right now and wish I had the opportunity to exchange my card for another company. I hear the Qualcomm Killer-N 1202 is an excellent replacement card. Only about $45 on eBay as well. Once my warranty runs out on my notebook I will be removing this card and burning it. Total garbage.

kas,

With all the attention this card has already, and the amount of threads being created, I highly, highly doubt anything is going to happen.

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WSnyd
Beginner
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Hi mpelley92, you got me thinking about the Qualcomm Killer N 1202 card. As far as I can tell, however, that card is mini PCI-e, so I don't think it would work with my laptop (mine has the AC 7260 M.2 NGFF). Also, I've heard that some laptop makers whitelist the wifi card hardware, making it impossible to replace your wifi card with anything but what is supposed to go in there. I don't know if Toshiba does whitelist, but from what I understand they do.

I thought about getting the AC 7265 M.2 to try and see if it works better. Unfortunately, there are so many different models I am at a loss as to which one to get. This really sucks.

And no theveterans, it isn't a lose connection. Too many people have this issue for it to be a lose wire. It's a broken wifi card is what it is. And now I'm stuck with a thousand dollar laptop that won't connect most places (except at unusable speeds). Heck, I even went back to Best Buy to speed test the display laptop. What do you know, less than a MB/s....NOT HAPPY.

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tvete
Valued Contributor II
2,914 Views

Combination of poor drivers and wifi card quality IMO. I believe the early April 2013 7260 cards are the best batches since I never experienced problems with it under Windows 7, but did have an issue with windows 8.1 so it was a driver problem for me. I was able to fix it though with zero power saving on pci express.

FYI, Killer N1525 is NGFF, not mini pcie like N1202 and it's a good alternative to 7265

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WSnyd
Beginner
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theveterans,

Thanks for the information on the n1202 card. I can't find them for sale yet, although I do see where they are used in several newer laptops.

I took you advice and opened up the case and looked at the WiFi card. Leads were firmly attached, and even had black tape over them to keep them tight. Also, I am not sure, but the card that is in my Toshiba looks different than the pictures of the N1202 card on Google. I'm going to look more into this. The unusable WiFi is killing me, especially at work. At home, I just use the 5 ghz band and don't have too many problems. But at work, my connection is unusable unless I use the USB WiFi adapter I bought. I am just afraid I'll snap that little stick off one of these days...

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SYou4
Beginner
2,914 Views

Found a solution to limited connectivity/adapter power problems. This completely fixed the problem for me. I can now use wifi after sleep mode even when moving locations to different wifi signals.

Device Manager -> Network Adapters -> AC 7260 -> Properties -> Power Management -> Uncheck both "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" and "Allow this device to wake the computer"

Haven't had a problem for 2 weeks. I'm a student who uses my laptop regularly.Oh and,

Screw You Intel.

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Cde_G
Novice
2,914 Views

I only wish it were that easy for me. Seems Intel put out (an apparently very large) batch of bad hardware where regardless of power settings, APs, or anything else they can't stay connected for more than 30 seconds to a minute. Intel of course has not offered to replace the bad hardware, so in that case it's "Intel screwed us".

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KShip
Beginner
2,914 Views

I too am experiencing many of the issues discussed in this thread. I created a thread describing my issues before reading this one but thought I would chime in here too. I have two laptops running two different Linux distros (with different kernels and different firmware versions), both have the 7260 card and both have all the issues described. I have two different APs at home and the issues occur on both APs. I have another laptop running an Intel 6205 card and that laptop has no connectivity issues. I really, really wish Intel would fix this card. The wireless is entirely unreliable.

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ECurr
Beginner
3,011 Views

Like many others, I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to resolve both AC 7260 and AC 7265 issues - mainly throughput falling off a cliff after a very short period of time. In my case, I was able to determine the issue and resolve it after a fashion.

I use a Bluetooth mouse extensively with my laptop. I noticed that, when I had Intel Wireless Bluetooth enabled in Device Manager, and was connected to a 802.11N router on the 2.4GHz band, throughput would drop off to a snail's pace. If I set the HT mode to Disabled (which corresponds to 802.11G), then wi-fi connectivity was fine, albeit limited to 54Mbps. On the other hand, if I enabled HT or VHT and disabled Bluetooth, then 802.11N connectivity was absolutely fine. Finally, connecting on the 5GHz band with Bluetooth enabled also worked fine.

My conclusion is that the AC 7260/7265 have a Bluetooth/Wi-fi co-existence issue. While the potential for interference between the two standards is well known, but the Bluetooth specification has specific mechanisms for mitigating it. The extent to which this is affecting the AC7260/7265 is way above and beyond anything I have encountered before - there is absolutely no way the issue should be this severe. Whether this is a fundamental flaw in the Intel hardware or an unresolved driver issue I don't know, but what I do know is that it's definitely unacceptable.

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MK22
Beginner
3,011 Views

So I've loaded the latest drivers (17.1.14) and I must say they are quite an improvement. Normal internet surfing doesn't drop anymore on 2.4 ghz (2 days of testing on tplink wn1043), but it does drop when streaming to my TV. In 1,5 hours it dropped three times, but luckily it fixed itself every time. Of course the movie was interrupted each time. So I am starting to believe, that they can actually make this work. Just a little more. Can't comment on the 5GHZ range because I don't have a suitable router.

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MK22
Beginner
3,011 Views

I bought a TP link archer C5 and have been doing some heavy streaming on the 5 GHz range. The card is rock solid on this frequency.

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Ilene_K_Intel
Employee
3,011 Views

We are locking this thread. If you are still having issues, create a new thread that describes your specific issue.

Thank you,

Intel Customer Support

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RHout
Novice
3,011 Views
I am out of the office until 02/14/2019. I will be out of the office, starting Wednesday morning and will return Thursday. I'll get back to you as soon as I return. Note: This is an automated response to your message "CCypr answered: Intel AC7260 problems" sent on 2/13/19 7:57:33. This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away. (Embedded image moved to file: pic09656.gif) Ryan Houtz Help Desk/PC Technician YKK (U.S.A.) INC. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GROUP 1090 Industry Rd. | Lawrenceburg, KY 40342 USA tel (502) 839-2415 mobile (859) 536-9684 | fax (502) 839-2234 ykknorthamerica.com | ryanhoutz@ykk-usa.com Connect with YKK: Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YKK Knowledge Center | YKK philosophy YKK Fundamental Behavior #6: "Lead by Example."
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Cde_G
Novice
3,011 Views
Back in 02 and 03 Intel was really good with both HW as well as software validation. After about 2005 their quality began to plumet. Not sure if they sent everything to China or there was new management? Whatever it was, has me buying Atheros  cards these days! I've tried reaching out to their support, but it does about as much good as talking to the dog. Get Outlook for Android
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RHout
Novice
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I am out of the office until 02/14/2019. I will be out of the office, starting Wednesday morning and will return Thursday. I'll get back to you as soon as I return. Note: This is an automated response to your message "Cde G answered: Intel AC7260 problems" sent on 2/13/19 11:28:22. This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away. (Embedded image moved to file: pic18217.gif) Ryan Houtz Help Desk/PC Technician YKK (U.S.A.) INC. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GROUP 1090 Industry Rd. | Lawrenceburg, KY 40342 USA tel (502) 839-2415 mobile (859) 536-9684 | fax (502) 839-2234 ykknorthamerica.com | ryanhoutz@ykk-usa.com Connect with YKK: Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YKK Knowledge Center | YKK philosophy YKK Fundamental Behavior #6: "Lead by Example."
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BB4
New Contributor II
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Mute On Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 13:08 Intel Forums <supportreplies@intel.com wrote:
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RHout
Novice
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I am out of the office until 02/14/2019. I will be out of the office, starting Wednesday morning and will return Thursday. I'll get back to you as soon as I return. Note: This is an automated response to your message "BB4 answered: Intel AC7260 problems" sent on 2/13/19 16:43:56. This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away. (Embedded image moved to file: pic07891.gif) Ryan Houtz Help Desk/PC Technician YKK (U.S.A.) INC. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GROUP 1090 Industry Rd. | Lawrenceburg, KY 40342 USA tel (502) 839-2415 mobile (859) 536-9684 | fax (502) 839-2234 ykknorthamerica.com | ryanhoutz@ykk-usa.com Connect with YKK: Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YKK Knowledge Center | YKK philosophy YKK Fundamental Behavior #6: "Lead by Example."
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BB4
New Contributor II
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Mute On Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 19:09 Intel Forums <supportreplies@intel.com wrote:
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JKels
Beginner
3,011 Views

If you need a tester for Windows 7, I'm willing to try it. I'm software architect(with development background). I know more than enough about networking and debugging to qualify. Let me know.

Nashville Billiard & Patio

 

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