Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 7260 keeps dropping wifi connection

[CNguy36]

For the past few weeks, I've noticed that intermittently (at least once a day), my computer will seem to slow down, and my mouse will freeze for a couple of seconds. Afterwards, I'll lose the ability to access the internet through wifi, and only restarting the computer or restarting the WiFi adapter through the network troubleshooter seems to restore internet access (disabling and re-enabling the adapter manually in the device manager does not work, as I receive an error code 10 while trying to enable the driver back). Additionally, I've noticed events 5007 and 10400 in the Event Viewer nearly every time I've run into an issue.

For reference, I'm running the driver with the version 18.33.17.1. I'm also attaching the SSU report for your convenience. I seem to not have the ability to upload the html of the WLAN Report, but if you can give me instructions on how to do so, I can gladly provide that for you.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for posting on the Intel communities. 

I would like to know if this issue has been present all along or if it starting happening after any hardware or software change. 

You can try re-installing the wireless driver cleanly, please follow the steps in the link below: 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000022173/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking.html

Let me know the outcome please.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Hi David,

To my memory, there were no hardware or software changes that immediately preceded these issues. Looking at the event viewer, it appears that these issues first started appearing on June 25th of this year; however, they didn't occur on a daily basis until the beginning of August. Unfortunately, a clean install of the driver did not resolve the issue.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for your response.

For testing purposes, I would like to know if you have tried using the latest drivers provided by your system manufacturer, this is important because the ones we provide are generic and the ones provided by your system manufacturer could be customized to work properly with your system.

Let me know if you have and the outcome of using these drivers.

Also, I was checking the report you have provided me with and I can see that the Windows build you have is not the latest one, please proceed to update Windows to the latest build if possible to see if the issue persists.

For your convenience here is a link to update the Windows build in case you are not able to do it via Windows update:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Unfortunately, even after updating Windows to 1903, I'm still seeing the problem. If my memory serves correct, this issue originated on the driver provided by my system manufacturer.

For reference, I'm attaching another SSU, updated to reflect the change in the OS.

[CNguy36]

Update: Earlier today, I experienced a BSOD with the stop code: Driver_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. The listed file that failed was netwbw02.sys, which as I understand is related to the Wifi Adapter. I have attached the minidump file here in case it may be of use to you.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for your response.

I appreciate you taking the time to provide me with the updates and feedback of the steps followed so far. Since you believe the issue started with a system manufacturer driver, let's try re-installing the driver provided directly by Intel. Please follow the steps in the link below to perform a clean installation:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000022173/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking.html

In the link below you can find the latest driver for your wireless adapter: 

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28621/Intel-PROSet-Wireless-Software-and-Drivers-for-Intel-Wireless-7260-Family?product=75439

Let me know the outcome please.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Were you able to check my previous recommendation?

Let me know if you need more assistance.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Hi David,

I've been away from the computer with issues and just got back earlier today. I'll try to perform a clean installation of the driver and will get back to you when I figure out whether the issue has been resolved.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for your response.

Understood, I'll be more than glad to assist you so let me know if this addresses the issue.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Hi David,

Unfortunately, even after I did a clean install of the driver, I'm still experiencing the same issue.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for your response.

I am currently looking into this to see what other options we can try. Please allow me some time and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for patiently waiting.

I would like to confirm some information and steps of troubleshooting we can try:

Test only this device connected to AP/router, no other devices.

Please reset the router.

For testing purposes, please try connecting the unit with a wired connection.

Are the other devices having a similar issue?

Are there other networks? What band are you using, 2.4 or 5.0 Ghz? 

Let me know please.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Hi David,

I can't test an ethernet connection right now, as my computer isn't located close to an accessible ethernet port. But the problem still persists after applying the first two steps you listed. I can try testing it on another network, but to my knowledge, this problem only occurs on one device. The network I've been using is 5.0 Ghz.

[CNguy36]

Hi David,

After testing the problem on a 2.4 GHz network, I've found an interesting result. I still have frequent drops in my connection to the internet. However, when I'm connected to the 2.4 GHz network (802.11n), the computer doesn't freeze, and the event IDs I described in the original post do not show up in the event log. Only after trying to connect to the 5 GHz network (802.11ac) do I experience the additional issues involving the WiFi adapter trying to reset. I hope this provides some clarity as to what kind of problem we're dealing with.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for your response.

I appreciate you taking the time to provide me with all the information, I am now checking to see how we can proceed with this, please allow me some time.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Hi David,

I just wanted to provide you with some additional information in case it provides more clarity on the situation. It appears that whenever I try to manually reboot the WiFi adapter through the Device Manager, the system completely freezes, forcing me to reboot my computer. This issue does not occur when the network troubleshooter tries to restart it. Additionally, I noticed that when I investigate the properties of the adapter while experiencing the problem, I'm given an error code 10 as well as the description "This device does not exist."

[BRuss9]

I am also having issues (again) with the 7260 adapter on latest Windows 10. Historically I have had the issues described going back to May 2018. Up until maybe sometime in August of this year, definitely within the past month, I was able to run the 17.15.0.5 driver without issue. In my experience, anything later than that caused problems. Over past weeks I've noticed the drops of Wifi and the system freezes all happening again. Depending on what I do or don't do to resolve, sometimes a graceful restart can't even happen and I have to force the shutdown. I'm on a Dell XPS 15 9530.

This is the last Dell has put out for laptop:

Intel 3160 7260 3165 7265 Wi-Fi Driver

Network16 Jan 2018

Download

Version: 20.20.0.1255 ,A01

Last Updated Date: 25 Feb 2019

File Name: Intel-3160-7260-3165-7265-Wi-Fi-Driver_DW5D1_WIN_20.20.0.1255_A01.EXE

File size: 152.36 MB

Description: This package provides the driver for the Intel 7265/3165/7260/3160 WiFi and is supported on the Inspiron and XPS series that are running the following Windows Operating System: Windows 7/8.1/10 64-bit

Any help on this would be great.

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36 and BRuss9,

Thank you for your response.

We have tried troubleshooting steps that should've fixed this problem, at this point what I can recommend you to do is to contat the system manufacturer for support so that they can have a look and see if the issue is related to hardware. 

Please contact them and work with them to get the best solution for your issue. 

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[CNguy36]

Thanks for your response, David. Unfortunately I contacted my manufacturer when I first encountered the issue, and they weren't able to propose anything that helped.

I wasn't able to try testing an ethernet cable earlier. If at a later point, I'm able to get access to one, and the problem goes away, would this still indicate a hardware issue? What about if the ethernet connection does not resolve the issue?

[David_V_Intel]

Hello CNguy36,

Thank you for your response.

I understand what you mean; however, at a software level, everything seems to be OK so I am inclined to think that the issue is actually hardware-related. 

Something I could recommend you as an extra step is to try using a network sniffer tool to see the logs and check what could be happening but I would recommend giving this information to the system manufacturer for further assistance.

David V

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel