Wireless-AC 7260 Slow Speeds

[TOMAS_G_Intel]

I bought a Gigabyte GA-X99-Gaming G1 WIFI motherboard that came with an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 Plus Bluetooth adapter. I have a NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 Dual Band Wi-Fi Gigabit Router (R7000). I though that the combination of these two would give me 300 Mbps for N wifi and 867 Mpbs for 5GHz for AC wifi. But the current speeds are much lower. When I connect to 2.4GHz I get around 120 Mbps at most. When I connect to 5GHz I get around 87 Mbps at most. I have searched forums all over the internet and I have read some of the threads here but I can't find a solution. I have all the latest drivers for the router and for the 7260 adapter. Also the lastest BIOS and all the Windows updates (8.1). I have tinkered with all sort of combinations of settings in the router and in the 7260 adapter. And this seems to be a problem with the 7260 adapter because other devices seem to be fine and achieve better speeds, specially in the 5GHz frequency. Can someone help me out here please? I am desperate, I don't know what else to do. It really disappoints me to have so many problems with this. Specially seeing that so many people have problems with these Intel wifi adapters. I can't believe Intel releases products so buggy, specially because I am an Intel employee, I though our goal was to make high quality, flawless products.

[jbenavides]

Hello tgonzale,

Please go to device manager and apply the following values in the advanced properties of the Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260:

802.11n channel width for band 2.4: Auto (not in 20 MHz only)

802.11n channel width for band 5.2: Auto (not in 20 MHz only)

802.11n mode: Enabled

Fat channel intolerant: Disabled

Preferred band: No preference, or Prefer 5.2Ghz band

Roaming aggressiveness: Medium (or less)

Throughput enhancement: Disabled

Transmit power: Highest

Wireless mode: 802.11a/b/g

HT mode: VHT mode

- Make sure WMM is enabled in the Wireless router.

- Verify you are using the current driver for your Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 and Windows 8.1* (at this time it is 17.13.11):

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProdId=3714 https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProdId=3714

For further assistance, we would like to know the version of the operating system (32 or 64 bit), wireless driver shown in device manager, type of authentication and distance from the PC to the wireless router.

[TOMAS_G_Intel]

I made sure and I have all the same settings you posted. WMM is enabled in the router. I am using the latest drivers for the 7260. The OS is Windows 8.1 64 bit. Type of authentication is none (open) (my closest neighbour lives 300m away, so no one is going to steal my wifi :P). The PC is in the room next to the router, so it's less than 2 m away but with a wall between them (I always get 3-4 out of 4 bars).

I was also suspecting the issue might be the router. Yesterday I installed dd-wrt firmware on it and forced AC-only and VHT (80+80 MHz) on the 5GHz channel. I still got the same slow speeds and worse, no internet connection, so I reverted to the stock firmware. BTW, I have a laptop with Intel Ultimate N Wi-Fi Link 5300 and I get 200+ Mbps on 2.4 GHz and 180+ Mbps on 5GHz. I still think that I should get more speed because the theoretical limit of the 5300 is 450 Mbps and the computer is really close to the router. So I don't know if this is a router issue or a combination of both. What I am really sure is that I shouldn't be getting 87 Mpbs at most on the 5GHz for the 7260 adapter and 144 Mpbs at most for 2.4GHz.

Edit: I am using channel 6 for 2.4GHz and channel 153 for 5GHz. I have tried other channels, but all give me the same results.

[jbenavides]

You may try the following actions:

- Review the configuration of your Windows Power plan. Check the advanced power settings to make sure your Wireless Adapter is set to Maximum Performance when On battery and if Plugged In.

- In the Advanced Properties of your AC 7260, set U-APSD support to "Disabled".

- Check with Netgear and make sure you have the most recent firmware for your Wireless AC router.

[DMaye1]

I have the exact same problem with slow internet speeds on a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 14 with the Intel dual band wireless-ac 7260 card. I have downloaded and tried latest drivers from Lenovo and from Intel with no success fixing the slow speed problem. I have tried all the settings suggested above with no success. Please note that the advanced driver settings have no option for 801.11n mode, so there is no way to enable this setting. Could this be the problem?

[ASouz7]

Hello D000D,

Please do the following configuration that might help you with the speed. Go to Device manger >>> Network Adapters >>> select and right click on the adapter, then select the last option that should be Property, when the dialog box pops up, select the tab that says Advanced and proceed to the following configurations for 2.4 GHz band:

1 - U-APSD Support : Disabled

2 - Transmit Power: 5. Highest

3 - Wireless Mode: 802.11 a/b/g

4 - Preferred band: prefer 2.4 GHz band

5 - HT Mode: HT mode

6 - Roaming aggressiveness: Lowest

7 - Ad Hoc QoS Mode: WMM disabled

On router:

Auto channel scan: Disable

Use only channels 1, 6 or 11

Let us know if this helped you.

[DMaye1]

I made the changes you suggested and the throughput has improved to about 35 Mbps download speed. I really think that reducing the Roaming Aggressiveness setting gave the largest improvement. Incidentally, if I move the laptop right next to the router (about 3 feet away, in the same room as the router) I get about 110 Mbps! The 35 Mbps download speed was measured when the laptop was about 25 feet away in another room on another floor. This speed degradation is quite large, unfortunately, but I I suppose the speed degradation is due to the additional walls and floor being in the way.

Curiously I get around 53 Mbps with my other laptop (a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro) when it is right next to the first laptop (in the room which is about 25 feet away and on another floor from the router location). The Yoga 2 Pro laptop has the Intel single band Wireless-N 7260 card. Why would the Wireless-N card perform so much better than the Wireless-AC card? It seems like the Wireless-AC card should perform better (since it is newer technology) or at least the same as the older Wireless-N card. Was a compromise made on the antenna design for the Wireless-AC card so it could support dual bands (instead of the single band for the Wireless-N card)?

[ASouz7]

Hello D000D,

Overall 5GHz offers a cleaner, clearer wireless channel and a more reliable wireless connection compared to 2.4Ghz. In particular, you should notice an improvement when you are downloading large files or streaming videos, However, 5GHz band is more susceptible to physical interferences caused by solid objects such as a wall and what it is made of.

In general, the higher the frequency of a wireless signal, the shorter its range. Thus, 2.4GHz networks cover a substantially larger range than 5GHz wireless networks. In particular, the higher frequency wireless signals of 5GHz networks do not penetrate solid objects nearly as well as 2.4GHz signals, limiting their reach inside buildings with solid walls and floors, so the bottom line here is that 5GHz and 2.4GHz are simply different frequencies, each with its advantages and disadvantages. To get the best of both worlds, some recent routers have the capability for dual-band operation in both ranges simultaneously. 5GHz offers higher throughput at a shorter distance, while 2.4GHz offers increased coverage and higher solid object penetration. Beamforming and other newer technologies allow 802.11ac to achieve cleaner signals with 5GHz in many situations where the 2.4GHz spectrum is congested. The migration to wider adoption of 5GHz will probably continue with the shift to the higher throughput 802.11ac.

When choosing the band for your router, it is also important to consider the capabilities of your wireless clients. Many laptops, tablets and other typical wireless devices still work only in the 2.4GHz band, while media streaming devices and newer phones have increasingly better adoption in the 5GHz band as well. 

802.11ac routers/access points support 802.11n in the 2.4GHz band in addition to 5GHz devices, so you get two separate radios that can be used simultaneously.

You may get more information on beamforming by clciking in this link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamforming Beamforming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rMtqRObvvU BeamForming - YouTube - You may be interested in seeing the other videos related to this subject.

NOTE: These links are being offered for your convenience and should not be viewed as an endorsement by Intel of the content, products, or services offered there.

[DMaye1]

Thanks for the explanation of the differences between the 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi frequencies.

I still do not understand, however, why my one laptop with the Intel Wireless-N 7260 card significantly outperforms my other laptop with the Intel Wireless-AC 7260 card when both laptops are operating at the same location and both are connected to my router using the 2.4 GHz band. My laptop with the Wireless-N card is getting 53 Mbps while my laptop with the Wireless-AC card is only getting 35 Mbps. That means the Intel Wireless-N card is running about 50% faster speeds than the Intel Wireless-AC card when all other conditions and settings are equivalentl.

[ASouz7]

Hello D000D,

In order to assist you with much more details we recommend that you contact your nearest Intel Contact Center for other support options. Here is the link: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport Contact Support our technicians will be more than glad to help you understand how the two bands work so you can have a clear idea what may be causing the reported issue.

[WPowe]

I am having the exact same issue, I followed all the steps here and my Chromebook gets faster speeds in the same location - almost no degradation of performance with distance from the router. I have a Wireless-AC 7260 router and the performance degrades significantly when I am at the opposite end of the apartment.

[ASouz7]

JoPo,

We have recently come up with a new driver version 18.40.0 found in our download center. We recommend that you try it. here is the link: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/75439/Intel-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC-7260 Drivers & Software just make sure you are choosing the drivers that is compatible with your OS and architecture 32 or 64 bit. Also disable Bluetooth if not in use as it uses the same antennas and consequently may impact your speed.

[emont3]

I have X1 Carbon with Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260, have had several wifi performance issues, I tested with Xirrus WiFi and all good in terms of RF (optimizing my TP-LINK Archer C9 with the best 2.4G channel and eliminating 802.11b etc) but slow web page loading Youtube slow loading or web-based stalled downloadings still persist. BTW I upgraded Intel PROSet Wireless in the laptop and the same slow network (only in wifi, verified the wired connection and works good). I realized Oracle VirtualBox loaded special driver into WiFi configurations, I uninstalled complete VirtualBox and I solved my issue!

Hope it helps for some of you that installed virtual machines with this Intel hardware.