Intel 7260AC terrible wireless speeds... anyone else having problems?

[Richdog]

So, we all know that this wireless adapter has real potential problems, the internet is full of horror stories from people about this card.

I did tests today and am consistently getting download speeds of 30Mbps (out of a possible 125Mbps sustained speed, which I get when wired). My crappy Aetheros adapter in my old Acer PC gets 100Mbps sustained download speeds on 5ghz Wireless N, so it is clear that this wireless card is dramatically and horrendously underperforming. My laptop is placed around 4m from my router in the same room, with little to no interference from anything else, so conditions are ideal.

I have tried multiple channels and settings on my router, and tonight will further experiment with the driver-level power saving features etc to see if something is wrong with the software settings on the ASUS itself.

I heard another guy on another forum telling me to try "multiple versions of drivers until you find one that works better", but for me that 's too random.

So, how are you guys doing with your Intel 7260AC cards? Did you have issues? Any tips solutions you used to solve them? 😄

Regards,

Rich.

UPDATE 20.11.2014

GOOD NEWS GUYS!

Before I left home for work I Googled someone with a similar issue and managed to fix my initial throughput problems.

The solution was this... https://communities.intel.com/thread/47426?start=15&tstart=0

Basically on your router you need to "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings" in the QoS section on your router settings (mine is Netgear 6300, maybe yours is in a different place).

I now get the full internet connection speed that my Wireless N-equipped laptop gets!

However, what I have not tested yet is if I will get through Wireless AC throughput between my router and my laptop, or if the Intel settings page now states that I am connecting at AC speeds.

However, this is already a BIG improvement! 😄

PS: Please note that this an issue specific to this Intel chipset... all my other laptop WLAN cards are 100% fine without this setting enabled...

[sati747]

I have a G751JT-CH71. I couldn't get the wifi connected during the initial set up. I have to get in the card setting to change the wireless mode to 802.11g (not b/g, not a/b/g, just g). I also disabled a bunch of setting in the wifi card configuration under wireless card configure - advanced menu. Now it is quite stable connecting at ~ 54 Mbps. I have an old Xyxel firewall/wifi combo box. I hope this helps.

update: forgot to mentioned that my access point have a wireless band setting of g+n

[rewben]

please note that if you wanna have 866.7Mbps of permanent speed, you should get a .ac router. (i am using asus.rt-ac66u) i have a number of intel 7260-ac in multiple machines, running at that speed at home. (everything in the same room)

sometimes default configurations of the drivers might not be favorable to your ap/router. you need to tweak a little. i believe someone most probably posted something related to those tweaks in the past that we could pick up with a search engine.

my old g55 is running at over 150Mbps in wireless-n network with default settings.

[Richdog]

GOOD NEWS GUYS!

Before I left home for work I Googled someone with a similar issue and managed to fix my initial throughput problems.

The solution was this... https://communities.intel.com/thread/47426?start=15&tstart=0

Basically on your router you need to "Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings" in the QoS section on your router settings (mine is Netgear 6300, maybe yours is in a different place).

I now get the full internet connection speed that my Wireless N-equipped laptop gets!

However, what I have not tested yet is if I will get through Wireless AC throughput between my router and my laptop, or if the Intel settings page now states that I am connecting at AC speeds.

However, this is already a BIG improvement! 😄

PS: Please note that this an issue specific to this Intel chipset... all my other laptop WLAN cards are 100% fine without this setting enabled...

[hmscott]

Richdog, glad you got it working!

It turns out that this setting isn't Intel's fault, all properly implemented 802.11n devices require WMM and WPA-2 / AES to enable N speeds, greater than G. 🙂

Cross-posted from notebookreview.com
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/761783-asus-g751-coming-maxwell-gtx-980m-...

bigspin wrote:
It still Intel's fault. You don't need that to enable with other cards.

bigspin, actually WMM is like the #2 thing to check when trying to fix throughput issues. The 802.11n spec requires WMM (802.11e) for N speed support.

Wireless Network Speed Tweaks - as good an explanation as any 🙂
SG :: Wireless Network Speed Tweaks

You need WMM enabled in your router to get the best throughput with Apple products:

Wi-Fi: Unable to connect to an 802.11n Wi-Fi network - Apple Support

The #1 thing to check is the correct encryption, WPA-2 / AES must be set to enable faster than G speeds.

Fast Wi-Fi's little secret - you have to turn on WPA2 encryption - Blogs - Techworld.com

Those are the two most likely miss-configured router options when moving to 802..11n

They aren't Intel's fault, Intel is only following the 802.11n specification requirements.

The driver and router firmware updates are the most important first things to check. Check directly on the router support site, don't rely on the router built-in update check.

Oh yeah, be kind to your neighbors and tune your Wifi signal power to as low as needed. I drop mine down to as close to 0 as possible - and I still get a great connection.

If you can't get the new Intel 7260ac to work with your old router, kick in a few bucks and get an awesome new router. The RT-AC66U and RT-AC68U have worked great for me.

Networking - RT-AC66U - ASUS

Networking - RT-AC68U - ASUS

This beast is new, and I haven't tried it out yet, if any of you get one, please let us know how it works 🙂

Networking - RT-AC87U - ASUS

With any single Wifi adapter sucky bad wireless can be anywhere, get a USB dongle Wifi adapter - I use one with a long cable to route it up high up and out of the way of obstacles at client sites - when the lab/cube/office is too dense to penetrate with the built-in antennas - a long USB cable puts the Wifi where I need it. And, a 2nd make/model of adapter increases the number of routers and AP's I can use.

Networking - USB-AC56 - ASUS

It pays to have a couple of backup network devices in case of incompatibilities. USB wireless, USB ethernet, USB 4G

Why throw away a great laptop for easily worked around problems?

[Richdog]

hmscott wrote:
Richdog, glad you got it working!

It turns out that this setting isn't Intel's fault, all properly implemented 802.11n devices require WMM and WPA-2 / AES to enable N speeds, greater than G.

I find it strange that no other laptop adapter (non-Intel) I have used has needed this setting enabled, and yet runs perfectly at Wireless N speeds.

[hmscott]

Richdog wrote:
I find it strange that no other laptop adapter (non-Intel) I have used has needed this setting enabled, and yet runs perfectly at Wireless N speeds.

Richdog, it's not odd, they have implemented a non-strict non-conforming 802.11n implementation, it's actually more common than not.

As N progressed and features were added, vendors only implemented what they could during the life-cycle of the router, and then released new routers with more features, and few companies go back and update the firmware in their older products to rework the implementation to confirm.

There are some routers where you need to disable WMM as it is broken and there are no further firmware updates.

That is why I kept a few extra adapters, of various vintages, collected over time as new features were released. Not all companies make it a point to have a continues upgrade cycle on their AP's, so having some alternative adapters in my bag has come in handy a few times.

[Richdog]

hmscott wrote:
Richdog, it's not odd, they have implemented a non-strict non-conforming 802.11n implementation, it's actually more common than not.

As N progressed and features were added, vendors only implemented what they could during the life-cycle of the router, and then released new routers with more features, and few companies go back and update the firmware in their older products to rework the implementation to confirm.

There are some routers where you need to disable WMM as it is broken and there are no further firmware updates.

That is why I kept a few extra adapters, of various vintages, collected over time as new features were released. Not all companies make it a point to have a continues upgrade cycle on their AP's, so having some alternative adapters in my bag has come in handy a few times.

My point is that is every adapter I have used in the last couple of years functions perfectly well in N mode without WMM enabled, then it's odd (as in, it seems unnecessary) that Intel chose to strictly adhere to needing it on to get greater than G speeds. It is perfectly understandable why a lot of people would get stumped by this.

[hmscott]

Richdog wrote:
My point is that is every adapter I have used in the last couple of years functions perfectly well in N mode without WMM enabled, then it's odd (as in, it seems unnecessary) that Intel chose to strictly adhere to needing it on to get greater than G speeds. It is perfectly understandable why a lot of people would get stumped by this.

Richdog, I agree, that's why I said WMM / WPA-2/AES are the #1 and #2 things to check, as I have seen this many many times.

Unless you have seen it, you wouldn't know about it, and with all the router settings to tweek - gotta love the Asus Professional settings in the AC68/66 routers - it's unlikely you would spend the time googling every single setting to find out if it was problematic - I have been doing that for years now,- but I am weird that way 🙂

[Richdog]

Will be interesting to see if my adapter settings now report AC speeds... looking forward to trying it in a few hours when I get home.

[hmscott]

Richdog wrote:
Will be interesting to see if my adapter settings now report AC speeds... looking forward to trying it in a few hours when I get home.

Richdog, one setting I didn't mention, is QOS, in a strict implementation enable it. I run without it if it isn't needed.

And, for 802.11ac, make sure the VHT option is enabled in the laptop driver properties - not HT, but VHT.

Finally, for highest speed, make sure channel bonding, 40mhz in 2.4ghz and 80mhz in 5ghz negotiate automatically, or set them manually in the router - take it out of Auto.

When you get it running, please post a snippet of the WLAN connection status 🙂