Intel® Wireless-N 7260 - slows

[SGowr]

Hi,

I have a problem with Intel Wireless-N 7260. The card works just fine, but after a few minutes transfer slows down to about 4Mb/s (802.11n -> 802.11b?).

I tried with all drivers and always have the same problem (now I have ,16.6.0.8). Sometimes the card loses connection and I must reset it.

Windows 7 64bit Professional on Lenovo Z510

Sorry for my english.

[ORAUC]

Same here, Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus NP940X3G with intel N-7260

lastest driver Intel® PROSet/Wireless 17.0.5.8 x64

Answers to above:

1. Both (2.4 and 5)

2. Windows 8.1 update x64

3. Happens on any wireless networks: home, work, public wifi hotspots

4. Around 3 ~ 4

5. Slowdowns in loading network files, high buffering times for video streaming, and very frequent connections drops.

6. Tried disabling, uAPSD, HT. No effect. Without HT seems to be more stable but still very very slow. Disable bluetooth seems to solve disconnexions problems, but I can't use my Bluetooth mouse (Microsoft 5000) when it's on (slowdown cursor, very hard to move, no fluidity).

7. Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, core i5

8. OEM installed : Intel Dual Band Wireless N-7260

[kg3]

I'd like to weigh in here. Have had issues with the Intel Wireless-N 7260 since I got my computer. Tried every single driver and every single setting, like many others. My answers to the above questions:

1. 2.4 GHz

2. Windows 8.1 (x64)

3. Every network I've connected to thus far.

4. A fair amount, 6-8.

5. As previously stated before, it's very noticeable while gaming. But even browsing I'll have a random delayed response, and doing a speed-test gives extremely varied results when run consecutively.

6. Not sure. Disabling certain things, changing settings etc yields mixed results, but the connectivity issue still remains. So I guess, no.

7. Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P

8. Intel Wireless-N 7260 (yes it was installed by Lenovo)

I've tried a variety of PROSet drivers, all to no avail. Hopefully this issue can be plugged soon enough.

EDIT: I've just installed the 17.0.5.8, previously this driver was even worse than any 16, but disabled the U-APSD support seems to have significant change. I'll do some tests and update soon.

EDIT 2: The problem is definitely a whole lot better, but I don't believe it is fully fixed. The connectivity spikes are less frequent and less drastic, but are still visible. I'll keep trying some things and let you know.

EDIT 3: Disabling WMM also seems to yield a better result, but still varied. Problem still seems unfixed.

[JSaud]

Has anybody else had any success with this?

I'd like to share my 2c as I'm still seeing mixed reports on the latest drivers. I do not use Windows. I use Ubuntu both at home and at work with a series of a few thousand systems. I have a laptop that came from Dell with Ubuntu on it (XPS 13) and I've had a lot of wireless issues lately. At first I thought it was a borked driver in Linux until I began to see an endless array of Windows users having problems too. I have a few problems on the table.

1) In a lot of cases, users cannot always just swap out wireless cards. While I acknowledge this is not specifically an Intel fault, it's worth mentioning that companies like Lenovo and HP are wildly notorious for whitelisting wireless cards. Oh, you have a card that fits and want to replace a problematic wifi chip? Good luck. Lenovo in particular I have dealt with personally on this level. It's wildly irritating that they are even legally allowed (which I'm not even sure of) to whitelist wireless cards, thereby severely limiting the user's ability to switch wireless cards (I like to think that when I'm president someday I'll put an immediate stop to nonsense behavior like this). I do not have this problem in my Dell (I have a different problem with my Dell as I cannot find a suitable alternative that has the same form factor, oddly), but as some users have suggested here, swapping out isn't always an option. This is why I now avoid Lenovo and HP like the plague.

2) How old is this card? What are we, going on 9 months? A year? Where on earth is Intel on this? You're working on a fix? This is outrageously disappointing that a wireless card could even pass any internal inspection. It took me all but a few hours from a fresh unbox of this laptop to see that this issue is still existent. Intel has traditionally had great drivers for both Windows and Linux, but this experience has me incredibly disappointed. Given the amount of exposure the 7260 has already, including in a lot of System76 laptops that come with Ubuntu preinstalled and an endless amount of Windows laptops, I am outrageously disappointed in Intel. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Last night I was sitting here on the 2.4 GHz band on my Netgear 3700 router. I was in direct line of sight as it sits underneath my TV. I kept disconnecting continuously. I must have disconnected about six times in less than an hour. On a hunch I fired up my wife's laptop to see if her laptop would disconnect when mine did. Her laptop admittedly has a trusty Atheros wireless chipset, and go figure, it not only did not disconnect, but it continued bringing over a few GB worth of ISO files from my file server while my XPS disconnected and then suddenly couldn't even see my SSID again.

I hate to sound so abrasive, but Intel, really, you have to get this right literally as soon as possible - and not just for Windows, but Linux too. I cannot believe I'm even on an Intel chip with this sort of experience. The magnitude of Google results with people enraged at this chip is mind boggling. What happened, Intel?

[BA1]

kgro, thank you for your information.

I tried many solutions, but turning off U-APSD with the latest driver (17.0.5.8) got me very close to my maximum connection speed (180Mbps) with a quite steady connection.

I'm using the AC 7260 adapter + bluetooth.

[MHarl1]

1. 2.4 GHz
2. Windows 8.1 (x64)
3. All networks I have connected to.
4. I am unsure.
5. Nothing specific. General problem.
6. I am unsure at this time.
7. Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro
8. The Intel Wireless-N 7260 was installed by Lenovo

I bought this notebook this month. I was not aware of the wireless problem previously. I am affected by the wifi problem in two ways:

• Wifi drops sometimes, saying "limited" connection with a yellow exclamation point in the notification area.
• Sometimes upon closing the clamshell lid or upon booting the computer the wifi is unable to connect to a network that other machines are easily connected to. A restart (or even two) is necessary to connect to the internet.

In order to circumvent the issue I have taken the following steps that I found posted in this forum and the Lenovo forum:

1. Updated the driver to the 17.0.5.8 version.
2. Turned off "Allow this computer to turn off this device to save power." In the device manager > power management properties for this network adapter.
3. Turned of U-APSD Support in the device manager > advanced properties for this network adapter.
4. Turned off PCI Express in the advanced power options for all power plans that I utilize.

My questions are as follows to Intel or anyone who has experience with this issue:

1. Are there any temporary solutions that I have missed that I can try?
2. Has anyone noticed that turning off power management settings in points 2-4 above significantly affects battery life?
3. Is Intel currently working on correcting this issue? What result can we reasonably expect?

Thank you very much for your help!

[YKuul]

I have a Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus 940X3G K03 with an Intel Dualband-Wireless-N 7260 WiFi Adapter and I also have significant connection problems with connection losses and a generally poor performance. I Installed several drivers and tried every hint in this forum and so on.

However, I also have a Logitech wireless mouse with the famous Logitech Unifying Receiver and yesterday I remembered that these receivers also uses the 2.4Ghz band. So i thought the Logitech receiver may interfere with the Intel 7260 Adapter. I've had the receiver always plugged in on the right side and it turned out the Intel 7260 adapter is actually really located next to the right USB Port.

Possible interference of Logitech Unifying receivers: http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Mice-and-Pointing-Devices/Unifying-receiver-interference-with-WIFI/td-p/843472 Unifying receiver interference with WIFI - Logitech Forums

Location of W-Land adapter for Samsung 940X3G: http://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/Samsung/ATIV_Book_9_Plus/wartung.jpg http://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/Samsung/ATIV_Book_9_Plus/wartung.jpg

So i changed the USB port and plugged the Logitech Receiver on the left side and actually it seems like the W-Lan performance improved. The speed is still not stable but higher, so the 7260 adapter is still far from working fine, but maybe this observation could contribute to a better performance.

Kind regards

[PMans]

I discovered that in Ubuntu someone simply added a patch to disable u-APSD.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2014-March/040854.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2014-March/040854.html

[JSaud]

I wonder if that's in relation to the 7 vs 8 variant of the Linux driver. I understand that when 22.24.8.0 was released, some issues forced Ubuntu to pull the 8 series out and put in the older 7 series (which is something like 21.x.7.0). As of recently, it's claimed that the 8 series was fixed, however I still had issues on a fully updated Ubuntu 14.04.1 system running 22.24.8.0. I updated the bug report with my comments urging the developers that this is still a problem. For kicks, I installed the latest stable Linux kernel, 3.15, and I see my driver version was bumped to 23.214.9.0. Even still, I had issues disconnecting.

At this point I'm going to just let Dell handle this, which unfortunately means that I'll have to do a system swap, but it'll land me on a different XPS 13 that does not have these problematic wireless issues. Unfortunately, the 7260 is the only card listed as compatible with the XPS 13 9333, so I can't even swap out to a different card. I can either keep this and tolerate its issues, or I can live happily ever after with a different XPS 13 that is not crippled by this poor excuse for a wireless card.

I've been a huge fan of Intel wireless. On both Linux and Windows, it's just been a nice 'safe' zone in recent years. Certain issues have risen up in the past (I recall an awful one from 2008/2009 that was in our Lenovo R61's), but we got through it. This experience has proven to me that you can't just look at the spec sheet, see Intel, and think it's a good buy. A simple Google search of 7260 yields a monumental amount of reason to avoid this card if at all possible.

Intel - Up until now, you've done some excellent work. What happened? How has a year passed with no actual fix?

[JVegt]

What the hell? I bought a laptop, 'updgraded' the wifi to dual band and this is what I find out now?

I am not even going to bother with any of this. I'll buy another card and it won't be an Intel.

[ACriv]

mailto:....joe@intel ....joe@intel...... any news ??? I think it's pretty clear by now that even this new firmware update solved the problems.....

I think all of us appreciate the effort, but it's taking way TOO LONG ...........

C'mon you're Intel..... are you considering a replacement of this card ?

PLEASE GIVE US A FEEDBACK

[RVinc3]

Dell promptly changed to guarantee the card 7260. too, The new one does not work properly. INTEL WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

[KEast2]

Try this.Hope it's working

目前看来所有的intel的驱动都有问题。

删除所有intel的驱动，使用win8.1 自带的ms驱动，不过需要禁止系统自动更新驱动，否则联网就自动安装intel的驱动了

[VPurt]

After two days of troubleshooting high latency ping and slow connection with internal network for Dual Band AC 7260, I've found the solution that works for me.

The average ping was 50-150 ms, while other laptop with N 6205, connected to the same access point has 1-3 ms.

I've latest driver installed 17.0.5.8 on Windows 7 x64.

While I've played with advance settings, I notice following: after you change the value and press "Ok" network disconnects and connects automatically.

First (in my case) 7-9 ping packages were with 1-3 ms, starting from 10-11 ping increase to the average 50-150 ms.

In Advance settings for wireless card properties, I've disabled "U-APSD support" (Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery).

After I did that, ping to internal network dropped from average 50-150 ms to 2 ms.

Reference link: http://www.gregpakes.co.uk/post/solving-intermittent-wi-fi-dropout-issues Solving intermittent Wi-Fi dropout issues

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Guys I totally understand your frustration with the product and its performance and I really apologize for all the inconvenience it may have caused to you. Please note we are strongly working towards a solution.

There are some troubleshooting steps I want you to try:

1. As previous users have reported, try disabling the U-APSD feature on the drive. Here you can check more information:

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

1. Try using 5GHz band for troubleshooting steps. This band is less crowded by devices and can improve the performance.
2. Note that other wireless near your system can interfere, as well cell phones, Bluetooth devices even a microwave since most of these devices run at 2.4GHz.

Kevin M

[RVinc3]

[IMG]http://i58.tinypic.com/29f6kg5.png[/IMG] http://i58.tinypic.com/29f6kg5.png[/IMG]

[kg3]

Something I am finding is that the adapter is shifting to use 802.11g instead of the preferred 802.11n. This has only been combated with using 802.11n only mode on my router settings, however this may not be an option for older computers I run without Wireless-N. Perhaps the issue is the driver fails to utilize wireless-N properly when given other options.

[GBals]

Update: Acer V7 482PG – 9884 with WIN 8.1 and 7260 AC DOES NOT WORK

I received the laptop back from Acer warranty repair stating, "Wifi seems to be working fine."

Upon testing my laptop the wifi disconnected after 20 minutes.

Acer did nothing to fix the issue, and ignored my print outs of the "Default Gateway not Available" wifi adapter reset troubleshooting documents.

Acer service told me that this was an Intel issue, and that I should wait for a driver fix.

I've saved all dialogues between myself and Acer as well as with Intel.

This is a known issue, with no fix thus far.

At least for Windows 8 and 8.1.

I bought Windows 7, pieced together all drivers, and have had no issues as of yet.

My solution was to rid myself of the god-awful Windows 8 and 8.1, and use Windows 7, where the Intel 7260 AC works just fine, at least for me.

At some point I'll be attempting to bill Acer or Intel for the purchase of Windows 7.

If Intel does not fix this, I sincerely think they should either recall their use of the 7260 with Windows 8, or a class action should force them.

Bottom line, I got the 7260 to work in Windows 7, but not Windows 8 or 8.1.

P.S. Intel told me to use another wifi card, and I bought and tried both the 2230, and the 6205, neither worked in Windows 8 or 8.1.

[JSaud]

TGunnar - I would be curious to hear how this pans out for you into the near-ish future in regard to Windows 7 being problem free. Users have reported issues on 7, 8, 8.1, Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, you name it. I sincerely (hate to say it) doubt that Windows 7 actually fixed anything.

I also encourage you to call Acer and push for a system swap. I just did that with Dell and it worked out fine. I did have to twist a few arms though. When I called Dell they simply indicated to me that I should wait for a driver fix. I politely informed them that this has been an issue for a year now and no fix has come about. I said I refuse to play this game with a device that is not working. Like it or not, Dell put the card in the laptop. Yes, it's Intel's problem, they are at fault, but Dell still put the wireless card in the laptop. As a result, I went through Dell to get it rectified. I swapped the wireless card once with another 7260 from Dell, but that made no change. Dell indicated that they wanted to at least try again, something I was hesitant about given I was tired of wasting my time, but I played ball. They wanted to replace the wireless card (2nd time), antenna, and motherboard. After a week of no communication I called to check on the status, only to find that Dell, for whatever reason, canceled the parts replacement. At this point I escalated it to a system swap and demanded to bypass the parts replacement due to their goof, something to which they ultimately agreed to.

Right now I am on a problem free Dell Latitude E7440 running Ubuntu 14.04.1 with an Atheros AR9462 wireless card. It might not be an AC card, but dangit, it works. It stays connected. It does the job and then some. This is something the Intel 7260 could not stand up to in the slightest dimension.

To be blunt, I fully support (I cannot stress this enough) a class action lawsuit against Intel. They have ignored this issue for long enough. Intel, stop messing with your customers. We are paying customers. We paid you for a product. You did not deliver on this product. Sorry, you just didn't. Your customers deserve better. Enough of this "we're working on a fix." Too much time has passed for anybody in their right mind to accept that at this point in time. If you had any ounce of desire to retain your customers, you'd do something about it. A recall for this card sounds like a terrific idea, but you know how big companies are these days. I wouldn't hold my breath.

TGunnar - please keep us informed on how Windows 7 works with that card. I'm very interested to hear if it tanks again or if the issue persists.

[tvete]

@ TGunnar

Running my laptop with Intel Dual Band N 7260 on Windows 7 too and never had problems. I can get 180 Mbps actual speed out of 300 Mbps connection speed.

[GBals]

It's been one month now of no connectivity issues.

I wiped my hard drive and performed a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium without any drivers, so in other words not a "factory reset."

My laptop came with Windows 8, and Win 7 was "not supported" by Acer, but I installed it anyway, and I am much happier with Win 7.

As to why or how this fixed the issue, my guesses are that Windows 8.1 has issues with Intel (both 7260 and 6205 didn't work) and perhaps the factory driver settings interfere with Windows 8, and 8.1.

Mr recommendations, return the laptop, or install Win 7 (clean install), or wait until Win 9.

Good luck everyone!

[JFerr19]

I have a new Samsung ATIV 940X laptop running Windows 8.1 with the Intel 7260 chip & have been having the same problems with it as others have been reporting in this forum. I have tried all the things various people have mentioned (uninstalled all the old drivers, installed the latest Intel driver (17.0.5.8), disabled U-APSD, disabled HT mode, changed all the power settings, etc.) but still experience much slower internet speeds than I should be getting.

I have a 4-year old Dell laptop sitting right beside my Samsung and it gets about 70 Mbps download from my router while the Samsung gets about 23 Mbps from the same router (about 6 feet away from both).

So, since I had an old Trendnet USB wireless adapter (TEW-664UB) sitting around that I wasn't using I decided to install it in the Samung and disable the Intel 7260. Yep, you guessed it - the Samsung now gets about 80 Mbps download speeds with no disconnects or other problems. The Trendnet is using the default Windows driver (5.1.2.0).

The router that both computers are communicating with is a Comcast supplied Arris TG862 Gateway (combination cable modem & router). The router only puts out 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi, no 5 Ghz.

Seems to me that this clearly indicates some kind of problem with either the Intel chip or the driver for it.