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?

[AThom18]

After installing the drivers (17.12.0.4) mentioned in this thread that don't seem to be official and mentioned here - http://blog.benkonicek.com/2014/10/24/fixing-the-intel-wireless-n-7260-connection-issues/ Fixing the Intel Wireless-N 7260 Connection Issues | Blog @ benkonicek.com

I've had great improvements with 2.4 GHz N networks. Essentially being able to max out my AP that only has a 100 mbps ethernet port and getting upto 20 MB/s on my Gigabit router. There is also a bit of congestion in the area on the 2.4 GHz channels so I'm happy with this performance.

5 GHz on the other hand is still shocking. It claims to be connected at 300 mbps and shows signal and speed variations when I move further away as expected. Transfer speeds are at best 4 MB/s when next to the router (same location as 20 MB/s on 2.4 GHz). I can easily get 12 MB/s on my Nexus 5 on the 5 GHz band with Speedtest (152 MBit broadband).

I've tried all variations of the advanced settings but no luck on 5 GHz.

[AndrewBourgeois]

I just spent 4 hours trying to install this card (the "for Desktop" version).

Hardware (custom built desktop): Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3 with an Intel 4770k CPU.

OS: Windows 7 SP1 (x64).

It only showed up as "SM Bus Controller" in Window's device manager and installing the corresponding drivers didn't help. It was slotted in one of my PCI Express x1 slots and I even tried the second one which didn't fix the issue.

I solved the issue by slotting the card in one of my PCI Express x16 slots (I don't understand why).

[MJoch1]

Same problems here, Lenovo W540 with 7260AC, horrible slow on 2.4 and 5 GHZ, bad ping times and max. 5 MByte / sec transfer rate. My old Lenovo has 20 Mbyte on 2.4 GHZ.

What the hell is going on?

[GB4]

I've sent my Laptop back to Lenovo to try a new card; if that doesn't do it, I'm gong to (sadly) send it back for a full return and just continue to use my Gen 1 Carbon..

[MJoch1]

I don't think it's a Lenovo problem, I think the adapter / driver is faulty. Tried to find the 7265 to buy, but no success

[Jose_H_Intel1]

The 7265 series of wireless adapters are M.2 only. Try this driver instead:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds036007 http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds036007

[MJoch1]

Hi there, did not work. Have tried these drivers, same problems.

You say that 7265 are M.2 only? Which format is the 7260 AC?

Thanks in advance, Marcus

[Jose_H_Intel1]

There are two versions: PCIe Half Mini Card and M.2 (NGFF). http://ark.intel.com/products/75439/Intel-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC-7260 ARK | Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260

Did you try all other suggestions given in this thread? You can also get assistance by contacting your http://www.intel.com/support/oems.htm system manufacturer or an Intel support representative.

• Phone: 1-916-377-7000 (option 5), Monday – Friday, 07:00 to 17:00 (US Pacific Time)
• http://intelsupportchat.force.com/icslivechat Live Chat
• http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport Contact Support

[eelfi]

happy to say I finally fixed my 7260.

System: Dell xps 15, windows 8.1

Uninstalled all Intel PROSET software completely, including bluetooth.

Uninstalled 7260 drivers from device manager, making sure to tick the option that removed the driver files. Went as far back as to use this driver at present, which seems to be working perfectly: version 16.8.0.6, dated 5/12/2013, provided by intel (i didn't deliberately download this - presumably it came from dell/bundled with win8?)

Connected to a router via wpa2 personal, 802.11n. channel auto, bandwidth 20MHz/40MHz.

[tvete]

I use the same drivers as well.

Zero problems, perfectly working drivers.

[MCoop3]

Thanks, that ended up working for me. Also a Dell XPS 15 with 8.1. I uninstalled all the PROset stuff, rebooted, uninstalled the driver through device manager, and rescanned for hardware changes. It picked back up my card and fell back to a 16.0.0.62 driver.

I was using our local speedtest site to measure throughput (http://speedtest.bhn.net/ Bright House Networks Speed Test). With the 17.1.0.19 drivers, I was getting 20Mbps down on 2.4, and 6-7Mbps down on 5.0. With the 16.0.0.62 driver, I get 58Mbps down on 2.4 and 122Mbps down on 5.0.

[MCoop3]

For what it's worth, I tried upgrading again to 17.1.0.19 using the Intel Driver Update Utility 2.0. After the restart, my speed tests on 5Ghz were getting between 2-3Mbps. Removing the driver through device manager and rescanning to get back to 16.0.0.62 got me back to over 100Mbps without even having to reboot or remove any PROset software from Add/Remove Programs. There's definitely something up with the current drivers.

[RSant26]

I've done the same things you did, apparently the 16.0.0.62 driver is the most stable at the moment. Let's see if Intel can fix this mess (though I don't think so).

So, I recommend going back to default driver version of Windows 8, the same way as MikeyCoopoer did.

[MCoop3]

My drivers have since updated to 16.5.3.6 and I still get very fast speeds with no drops on 5.0 GHz.

[MK22]

Well the last update (dec 29th) was in the right direction. Before the card couldn't connect to anything. Now it actually connects, the dropouts are less frequent and less dramatic (just a small drop and then it goes back up), but the speed is now limited at around 300 kB/s, which is ok for general internet surfing but that's not what you'd expect from a 867 mb/s card...

[MK22]

Ok I did some streaming. It ran like it should for a couple of minutes but then the speed dropped and it stuttered ireversibly. And I was wrong about the 300 kB/s cap, it was just a fluke. But still the drops are real. I'm on a Tp-Link tlwn-1043 router.

[JLeht1]

Can someone provide a link to the older driver versions? We are having this problems with ~20 laptops (Lenovo) and the latest drivers are absolute shit. Intermitten drops, slow speeds etc. If the older versoin won't help I'll have to change all the network cards to get rid of the problem.

[PTomo]

Just search for drivers on your computer. You will find 16.8 (Intel) and 16.0 (Microsoft) these are working for the most people. However i notice 17.13 is good too for me. (I installed PRO Set too)

[JLeht1]

Thanks. I'll check what happens with the latest one first

[JBuzz]

I am experiencing this same issue on a new lenovo T440s with Intel Wireless-AC 7260.

Windows 8.1

Lenovo Intel driver 17.13.2.2

I am only able to get 35 Mbps on wireless.

My comcast ISP is rated at 105 Mbps and I get 120+ downstream speed using wired connections and wireless on an older T430 laptop. So I know with certainty the wireless network is able to provide more speed.

I too have checked and rechecked all power related settings.

Using the lenovo update tool to download and update the intel driver results in version 17.12 being installed. If I download the package manually and use Windows device manager to update the driver gets me to version 17.13.2.2. Both show the same speed.

Are there any other settings that could be slowing the wireless performance?

Thank you.

[NNano]

I also must confirm this WiFi-card is rubbish. I have tried countless number of different drivers, e.g. one shipped with Windows, drivers from laptop manufacturer, drivers from Intel website... none works. Maybe you people here are right, that the original Windows 8.1 driver (16.5.3.6) is the best, but the bar is not really high here . Network is always unusably jerky. Lagging is unacceptable if working over remote desktop connection or playing multiplayer games.

I think I have gone through all available setting combinations found in WiFi driver in device manager. I have tested several different routers, that make a difference, some are better than other, but the fact remains that no other computer, tablet, phone or any other WiFi card have this kind of issues.

The connection speed is not really the big issue for me, but the long ping time and lost packets is.

Everything depends of course on the router, but packet dropping is always present.

Even with the best working router (short ping) there are constantly lost packets (~2% lost):

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 169.254.81.136: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128

And if we have a "bad" (incompatible) router, that still works perfectly well with all other wireless devices, Intel AC7260 not only drops most of the packets but the ping time is really long:

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=561ms TTL=128

Request timed out.

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=676ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=546ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=3305ms TTL=128

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=692ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=434ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=439ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=769ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=1623ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=542ms TTL=128

Request timed out.

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=567ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=581ms TTL=128

For a reference I will show here the results when pinging the same router than above, but now with other laptop:

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Reply from 192.168.137.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128</em>

Routers should all be more or less standard, because they work with all other devices. What is wrong with this card? Hardware design flaw or is this still fixable via a driver update?

There should not be much interference with other traffic, I can see only 2 other access points and my router is configured to operate on empty channel.

Intel should finally fix this thing or give me card that works.