Poor Range and Performance with Intel Wireless AC 7260

[Zythyr]

I own a Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W. It has Intel Wireless AC 7260 2x2 card. I have noticed myself and have read on multiple forums that people have been having issues with the wifi being slow with that laptop. When sitting right next to the router, speed is great, but when going a little far away from the router, the speed drops significantly...

I have compared my other laptop that has a Broadcom wireless N 1x1 card. In my bedroom (far from the router), speed is still great (~50MB/s) with the Broadcom card, while the Intel 7260 becomes significantly slow (~2MB/s).

Many people claim that it's because 7260 must be used with a AC router. My router is an AC router with both 2.4 and 5Ghz enable, but still horrible performance.

So is this an issue with the Intel AC 7260 card having poor range/performance by design, or is it because its an wireless AC card? I would expect that all wireless AC cards are backwards compatible, so it shouldn't degrade performance even if the router is not dual band...

I even used this guide to see if range/quality would be improved, but still no help.

I also updated the drivers for the Intel 7260 as well as using the latest firmware for the router.

Is there a way to resolve issues with the Intel 7260 without having to purchase a new card? If I were to get a new Wireless AC 2x2 card, which should I get?

Performance measurement details:
My Router: ASUS RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router
Windows 8.1
Measuring speed based on Speedtest.net
ISP speed (ethernet): 50+ MB/s

Lenovo (Broadcom Wireless N 1x1)
Toshiba (Intel Wireless AC 7260)

Speed 2m away from router:
Broadcom: ~40-50MB/s
Intel: ~35-53MB/s

Speed another room (same floor) ~8-10m away
Broadcom: ~45-50MB/s down
Intel: ~1MB/s down

Router is in dual band (2.4 & 5Ghz mode)

 

[jegesq]

Just a couple of questions first and then after you provide that info, we can come back and discuss this in more depth.

1. What kind of router are you using? Make, model no. and firmware version?

2. What OS are you running on your laptop?

3. Please provide the advanced settings in "Properties" for the AC7260 adapter (look in Device Manager, find Network Adapters, and right click on the AC6260, and then look for "Advanced" and provide those settings.

4. Who is your ISP and what tier of service (e.g., up and download speeds) are you supposed to be receiving? What brand of cable modem or other modem are you using?

5. Have you tried using a USB wireless adapter to see if the problem really is the Intel 7260 (either malfunctioning or bad settings) or something else in your network?

6. Is the router located on the same or a different floor than you router? How many walls between them and what is the type of construction (brick, drywall, steel, etc.)?

7. How are you measuring speeds?

The most common complaint about the Intel AC7260 is that it tends to mysteriously "disappear" when the computer goes into sleep/hibernation and then is awakened, and it will not connect again to your router unless you go into Device Manager and "disable" the device and then "enable" it again. This is often solved by changing the Power Management settings, again in the Advanced Properties of the adapter (and not in the way most people suggest....most everything you'll read will tell you to turn off the computer's ability to turn off the device to save power; that is actually what you want the computer to be able to do, so that box should be checked and 99% of the time this solves the "disappearing" adapter-hibernation issue. But that's not your problem, so I provide that just by way of pointing out that the complaints you may read about on the internet about this adapter do NOT usually relate to low speed issues.

BTW, most laptop manufacturers, Toshiba included have "whitelists" that are integrated into the Bios. These "whitelists" tell the Bios to only allow certain components from certain manufacturers. I would bet heavily that the only wireless adapter card that your Toshiba laptop will accept is the Intel 7260.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
I have them in my laptops I installed. ASUS ROG and Toughbook. It does work but not an
outstanding performer in -AC mode. It is not worse or better compared to other cards
Just make sure you have latest driver. I installed Bigfoot killer card in another
MSI gamer laptop it is not -AC card but it is very good -N card, reliable and fast. I'd rather have a card with reliable steady speed than flaky faster speed regardless of what mode it is
running on.

 

[Zythyr]

My Router: ASUS RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router
Windows 8.1
Measuring speed based on Speedtest.net
ISP speed (ethernet): 50+ MB/s

Lenovo (Broadcom Wireless N 1x1)
Toshiba (Intel Wireless AC 7260)

Speed 2m away from router:
Broadcom: ~40-50MB/s down
Intel: ~35-53MB/s down

Speed another room (same floor) ~8-10m away
Broadcom: ~45-50MB/s down
Intel: ~1MB/s down

Router is in dual band (2.4 & 5Ghz mode)

 

[jegesq]

You didn't answer some very important questions:

1. ...Firmware version?

3. Please provide the advanced settings in "Properties" for the AC7260 adapter (look in Device Manager, find Network Adapters, and right click on the AC6260, and then look for "Advanced" and provide those settings.

4. Who is your ISP and what tier of service (e.g., up and download speeds) are you supposed to be receiving? What brand of cable modem or other modem are you using?

5. Have you tried using a USB wireless adapter to see if the problem really is the Intel 7260...?

6. ... How many walls between them and what is the type of construction (brick, drywall, steel, etc.)?

The adapter advanced settings, including Power Management settings, are pretty important. Please list those, at a minimum.

Also, a couple of other new ones:

A. In your AC66U, what channel are you using for the 5ghz band?

B. What is the channel width assigned to that channel (40mhz or 20mhz, or "auto")?

C. What are your other settings in the router for 5ghz radio? Please list them?

 

[azazel1024]

Also, I assume you are using the wrong units. MB/sec means MEGABYTES per second, which the numbers you gave, no 802.11n wifi card can possibly do.

If you mean Megabits per second, it is Mbps, or Mb/sec. Lower case b always.

Under advanced driver properties for the Intel card, try disabling UASP. It causes problems with my routers in 11n mode (which also means 2.4GHz operation). I get knee capped 3-5MB/sec performance, which is 24-40Mbps. That is compared to with UASP disabled, I get around 25MB/sec on 11n with it (200Mbps) and up around 60MB/sec on 5GHz 11ac (480Mbps).

 

[Zythyr]

@jegesq

I returned the laptop to Best Buy, so I can no longer provide the details you asked.

@azazel1024 @jegesq

I bought another laptop, Lenovo Edge 15, which as Intel Wireless AC 3160. Same issue: poor range, poor performance when not in the same room as the router, and connectivity issues when distant from router.

I already tried disabling UASP and also followed the, 0How to improvethequality ofwireless connection?(ForIntel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 / 7260) ,guide I found.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Are you using something like inSSIDer 4? t survey your WiFi environment?

 

[Zythyr]

Hi,
Are you using something like inSSIDer 4? t survey your WiFi environment?

No. I am testing with speed with www.speedtest.net and comparing with another laptop that is a non Intel Wireless AC.

The performance of the wireless card should be independent of the type of router. No consumer should be expected to configure the router to optimize the wireless card, since in many situations the router can't be configured because it is a public router such at a coffee shop, university, library.

 

[azazel1024]

Try disabling UASP within the driver properties of the Intel adapter and see if that makes a difference.

*edit* never mind, I saw your response. Don't know what to tell you, I have not see extreme issues like you are seeing. My 7260ac works amazingly well. Better than any other AC1200 type adapter (mPCIe or USB) that I have tried to date.

 

[jegesq]

@jegesq

I returned the laptop to Best Buy, so I can no longer provide the details you asked.

@azazel1024 @jegesq

I bought another laptop, Lenovo Edge 15, which as Intel Wireless AC 3160. Same issue: poor range, poor performance when not in the same room as the router, and connectivity issues when distant from router.

I already tried disabling UASP and also followed the, 0How to improvethequality ofwireless connection?(ForIntel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 / 7260) ,guide I found.

When you say "connectivity issues when distant from router" what are you talking about? Do you mean the laptop drops the connection entirely? Or just that it's slower than when you're right next to the router?

Both the 3160 and 7270 use the same Intel Driver. So unless you post your settings, so someone else can see what you've got the card set at, it's pretty hard for anyone to help you resolve the issues you say you're having.

Also, I hope you appreciate that 5ghz doesn't have the same range (and thus will lose throughput/speed) at a greater rate at the same distance than 2.4ghz?

What are the settings on your router? What is the channel bandwidth? What channel are you using?

Lots of questions that you haven't answered. It would help if you did provide the info.

 

[Zythyr]

I have tested with both default settings and non-default settings as listed below:

802.11n Channel Width for 2.4HHz... Auto
802.11, Channel Width for 5.2GHz... Auto
Ad Hoc Channel 802.11b/g... 1
Ad Hoc QoS Mode... WMM Disabled
ARP ofload for WLAN... Enabled
Bluetooth(R) AMP... Enabled
Fat Channel Intolerant... Disabled
GTK rekeying for WoWLAN... Enabled
HT Mode... HT Mode
Mixed Mode Protection... CTS-to-self Enabled
NS offload for WoWLAN... Enabled
Packet Coalescing... Enabled
Preferred Band... 2. Prefer 2.4GHz band
Roaming Aggressiveness... Lowest
Sleep on WoWLAN Disconnet... Disabled
Throughput Booster... Enabled
Transmit Power... Highest
U-APSD support... Disabled
Wake on Magic packet ... Enabled
Wake on Pattern Match... Enabled
Wireless Mode... 802.11a/b/g

The original Toshiba laptop I returned, but I bought another Lenovo Edge 15 which has Wireless AC 3160. I no longer have the laptop on hand because I gifted it to friend. With 3160, the friend indicate same issues I had with Toshiba Wireless AC 7260... He in fact can't connect to internet from his room because router is far. His router is a non-dual band.