So many AC 7260 issues

[PSeam]

I know that there are already a lot of threads about the problems with this card.

I've trawled through most of them and tried just about everything that has been recommended.

However, in my quest for a solution, I noticed something that I have not seen mentioned before.

Generally, during the trial of all the suggested resolutions on my Windows 8.1 setup I either get wireless with no bluetooth, bluetooth with no wireless or neither.

In general though, the option to turn wireless on is grayed out in Windows and I know that it is not an issue with either hardware or software on/off switch because if I plug in a USB wireless dongle, it works perfectly well.

When booting though, as windows first starts and proceeds to load all the background processes, the wireless is turned on and if I am quick enough, I can even see my network detected and even enter the router password.

As background processes continue to load though, everything then gets turned off.

This leads me to believe that perhaps there is a conflict with another piece of software, although nothing in the event log leads to any conclusions.

Now I could try and go through all the startup processes and services to find what it may be but that might take too long, so I wondered if there was any way to obtain a list of the processes in the very order that they are started in windows.

That way, I could then narrow down the list to only those processes and services that start after the wifi for the AC 7260.

One of the other suggestions that I have seen for some users is a BIOS upgrade.

I am on a latest BIOS for my machine but have now installed a fully unlocked version with dozens of additional options, many of which don;t make any sense but perhaps there are specific areas in the BIOS that I could enable/disable/modify that might aid.

One last thing that does puzzle me too.

In the advanced settings in windows for the card, in the Wireless Mode section, there are only 6 options, the most comprehensive stating 6. 802.11a/b/g, where I would also expect to see n and perhaps ac (never used ac before, so don't know).

I've never come across a piece of hardware that seems to have so many issues.

[PSeam]

I have made some progress, although not as I want and as it should be.

I am unable to have both wireless and bluetooth working at the same time.

But I did find something interesting.

If I install the latest wireless drivers but not the bluetooth,letting the default microsoft drivers load, bluetooth works but there is no way that wireless can be switched on, it's still greyed out.

Device manager still shows the AC 7260 as working.

If I then install the latest Intel bluetooth drivers, wireless works but no bluetooth is shown anywhere.

Plugging in a bluetooth USB dongle enables bluetooth for that device only.

Despite showing only 802.11a/b/g as being available in device manager settings, I set my router to only allow N connections and it still works, so no idea why there is no N setting available to choose. Don't have an AC router yet, so can't test that ability.

I'm stumped as to the logic behind it all but I think that Intel really need to take a better look at the issues and involve customers more with diagnosis and testing.

I have also discovered that when waking from sleep, the card gets disabled.

Easily resolved by re enabling but not good.

On paper this card is a great idea but the implementation is too problematic for it to be marketed without a realistic warning about compatibility.

Considering the size and resources of the company, not enough is being done to allow potential customers to be more informed about a purchasing decision.

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Hi Bluesmanuk,

I am sorry you are having problems with the AC 7260 adapter but let me give some troubleshooting steps improve the performance.

We really are looking into issues related to all our products and we consider extremely important all feedback provided by our customers so I would like to get more information about the system configuration you have.

I would appreciate if you can provide the following:

1. Attach your dxdiag report here. How to get it?

Dxdiag Report: Type dxdiag in Start Menu> open> Save> Attach using Advanced Editor Options.

1. Run the System Identification Utility and provide me with the code generated by the software. Here is the link: http://www.intel.com/support/siu.htm http://www.intel.com/support/siu.htm

1. System information:
2. Wireless Router Brand and model:
3. Router Firmware installed:
4. Wireless band set on the router, is it at 2.4GHz or 5GHz?
5. how many devices are connected to the Wireless lan?
6. What are the wireless and bluetooth driver version installed?

All this information will help me to provide accurate and helpful answers.

Kevin M

[PSeam]

Hi Kevin

Thanks for the reply.

DXDiag results attached.

The code generated by the SIU is 0272 4498

1. Not sure exactly what information that you want as far as system information is concerned, so difficult to specify. The SIU report does seem to give a reasonable amount of information, so hopefully that will suffice, but if you need anything more specific, I'm happy to provide it. I've attached the SUI report output as it may give you more information, especially as I have noted that under the Wireless Networking Product section, it shows as not detected, which is rather curious.

2. Router is a Belkin Play N600 DB, hardware model F9J1102 v1.

3. Firmware is latest at 1.00.10

4. It is a simultaneous dual band router, where the 5Ghz channel is set for operation over 802.11n only. 2.4Ghz channel is setfor 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n. Bandwidth for both channels is set for 20/40Mhz.

5. At any one time, only two devices are generally connected to the wireless lan. This laptop and my Android phone. It is rare for both to be connected at the same time.

6. Over the past couple of days, I have been playing around with combinations of old an new drivers. Currenly the sifi driver is 17.1.0.19 and I think that Bluetooth is currently 17.1.1406, although could be 17.0.6. I played around in order to try and get to a situation when I could wake from sleep without the card becoming disabled. At present I am able to wake from sleep without issues but as Bluetooth is not seen by Windows, I'm not 100% sure what driver version is installed and as I have a half way balance with wifi, am reluctant to mess around. If there is an easy way to identify the bluetooth driver, let me know and I will report back.

Regards

Phil

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Thank you for all the information you have provided it is very helpful for us.

I would like you to try installing the following Bluetooth driver:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=23999 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=23999

Kevin M

[PSeam]

Thanks for the reply Kevin.

I had tried that driver version before but installed it again.

After a reboot, I watched the status bar and initially (as I have seen before), both wireless and bluetooth are active but by the end of the boot process, wireless is disabled such that it cannot be turned in again.

I then reinstalled the latest wireless driver and following a reboot, wireless works and there is no sign of bluetooth being present in any form.

If I go to the charms bar and type in bluetooth in the search box, a window pops up to say that 'Bluetoot sever failed' (Bluetoot being the correct spelling) with the message in the window reading 'A socket operation encountered a dead network. Is bluetooth hardware available?'

Clicking the OK button takes me to another window, titled ShareKM(Bluetooth) with a button with the title 'Start Bluetooth Sever' with a message underneath stating '* Only the Microsoft bluetooth stack is supported', which indicates to me that third party drivers are not supported by the OS itself?

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Can you please provide images of these errors?

Kevin M

[PSeam]

Zip file attached with a variety of screen pics that show what does and doesn't happen, including a list of start-up processes that may perhaps help.

[Kevin_M_Intel]

Hello Bluesmanuk,

Thank you for all the information provided. The images you sent gave me a clear picture and in fact is very strange the situation you are going through. We have not received reports from customers about this issue but there are some troubleshooting steps I would like you to do:

1. Make sure your computer is running latest BIOS.
2. If you did the integration, confirm with the Computer Manufacture if the Wireless adapter is supported by your system.
3. Make sure you install all the drivers for BT and wireless.

Wireless:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24168&lang=eng&ProdId=3714 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24168&lang=eng&ProdId=3714

BT:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24191 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24191

If issue perist, I would recommend you backing up all files and reinstall the Operating System and testing all components without installing other programs.

Kevin M

[PSeam]

I'm not so sure that mine is so unique a situation.

1. I do have the latest BIOS.

2. There is no realistic way that most vendors could claim compatibility. The fact that the machine supports this kind of card should be a reason to purchase, as we all dowith so many other peripherals and devices that we put in and plug in to ourmachines.

3. I have installed each of the drivers and in many different combinations of old and new.

Re-installing the OS and configuring from scratch again would be rather a mammoth task with the configuration that I have but I may create a new partition, install it fresh on that and try again, or simply temporarily disable every startup program and service exceptfor Microsofts and Intels and boot from that, which would in essence be the same as creating a new OS install.

I'm sure there must be more diagnostic information that could be used to tell what is happening, especially from a company such as Intel that must have to diagnose millions of possibilities when designing a product.

The fact that there are so many people with issues of one sort or another should be ringing alarm bells in the management chain.

[Kevin_M_Intel]

We have reports from customers about similar issues and we are working and investigation towards a solution.

Doing a Clean installation of the Operating System is a good step so we can discard any other driver, software or registry key affecting the performance.

Kevin