M17X R4 with WIndows 8 and the Killer N 1103

Greetings NoteBook Review Friends!

I have not had a great track record of finding solutions for my problem, as they seem to be esoteric and strange, but here goes my latest one. I upgraded to Windows 8 on 27 Oct, and initially had some major problems. The initial problems I had were related to the switchable graphics with the Intel HD and Radeon 7970, which I finally resolved by finding the correct drivers (I am considering trying the new drivers Dell posted, but a little cautious). The last problem I was having was related to a third-party program called Parallels Workstation, where its shared/bridge networking would not work. While trying to solve that problem I ended up downloading and installing the latest Killer N Drivers from the Killer Gaming :: Home website, as Dell has not posted Windows 8 Drivers for the Killer N for the M17x R4. Before that I was running with the latest Windows 7 drivers which seemed to work fine. I thought that perhaps the newer drivers might help with the Parallels issue, which it did not. So not only did it not solve my issue, the latest drivers seem to have a bug that causes the wireless network connection to just randomly stop working. The connection stays "up" but the network itself drops off. I lose access to my local network shares and everything, normally within a few minutes it will reconnect, but it causes havoc with my shares, particular when I have files open. Once I figured out that it was the Killer N drivers causing the issue, I attempted to uninstall them. Once I did that, I was able to get the "default" Windows 8 driver for the Atheros card, to install (it actually did it automatically), and again the wireless is stable. However, I no longer have any advanced features of the Killer N network Manager. I attempted to try and install the older Windows 7 M17X R4 drivers, but they will not install. Does anyone know how to get either the latest Killer N drivers to work, or of an alternative driver that works for the M17X R4? Thanks!

Latest Killer N Drivers from the manufacture (don't seem to work correctly):
Killer Gaming :: Support :: Driver Downloads

Rich S.

 

Had the same issue except my killer wireless card went into 'limited connection' even wth the default windows 8 drivers. What I found best to do is to go to network adapters, device properties, advanced, there should be a mode called ad hoc 'n' and dynamic power saver, they are both disabled, after I enabled it, havent had a dropped connection since, and I updated back to the latest killer network drivers .427 I think it is, no problems here since.

EDIT problem came again, sticking witth stock drivers for now

 

I had similar issues in both Windows 7 and 8. I found disabling/unchecking the 'Allow Windows to turn this device off' in either the Windows power options control panel or the adapter properties (can't remember where off top of head) worked for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's under the advanced settings of the adapter. Last tab. Tried unchecking it, will see hwo I get on. Thanks for the tip anyways.

 

okay so Dell has a driver on their website, but guess what... doesn't work any better than what is on killer's website. oh and Killer's forums are closed.

Luis P. or any other Dell rep, what's the deal? Why can't we get a working drivers on windows 8 for the Killer cards? We can run with Stock windows 8 drivers, but what's the point of having the killer card in these things if we aren't getting everything out of it.

I feel like I have to go out and buy a new network card to put into this thing because the Stock driver I don't think I'm getting the full speed out of my card.

 

I still get connection dropouts with stock drivers tbh, latest drivers + disabling any killer network manager features + a few advanced setting tweaks seems to be stable for me for the moment.

Havent noticed any speed increase/decrease with different drivers tbh. I still get full speed out of my card I think.The range/speed on the killer wireless is great I think personally, just the connection stability isn't amazing with default settings.

 

Hi Everyone,

I have been running with the stock Windows 8 driver for the Atheros AR8151 since I initially posted this, and no longer have any dropouts. I downloaded the latest update posted to the Dell site, but have yet to actually try them. I know my card itself is fine, as I had no problems under Windows 7, even with the Killer drivers installed. I am hoping that better drivers are released and allow me to use the "killer" features soon. It has been more than 3 months now. Good luck!

Rich S.

 

Latest Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 driver http://www.qca.qualcomm.com/download.php?type=driver&id=74

 

I've been trying to tweak the dell drivers on and off throughout the day, got to the point where I couldn't do anything. I started the NVidia driver download (new ones released today) and it was going at 200k a sec.. and I couldn't do anything else while that was happening. I completely uninstalled Killer and ran the killer cleaner and it the download shot right up to 900k a sec.

So I give up and will stay with stock even though with stock, I still get bouts of VERY high latency and then it picks back up.

I apparently had unreasonable expectations when purchasing an alienware. :confused2:

 

Not having any dropout issues on the latest r4 killer drivers from dell and the killer manager disabled. the killer manager is kinda a gimmik anyway for me.

 

Why don't you try a system restore to a date before you did that update on the Killer Drivers?

 

+1 REPUTATION!

Thank you very much. I want to use the latest Windows 8 drivers and this did it for me. Instant results, and how rare those are

Thank you Chris!

 

I was getting disconnects too after updating to the latest drivers on Qualcomm's site.

I've seemed to fix the problem by uninstalling the Killer drivers and letting Windows 8.1 install the default Atheros driver (Qualcomm Atheros Osprey Wireless Network Adapter). Also unchecked the "'Allow Windows to turn this device off" box.

Been running solid with no hard disconnects for a few days now>

 

This thread is over a year old...

 

I will add if anyone that are using killer-N on windows8-8.1 checked their ping while playing/downloading big files?
ping google.com -t from CMD(command prompt)
I noticed that on win8.1 sometimes ping is better sometimes normal but no matter what drivers I put/no mater what settings I set there are drops of packets sometimes connection drop sometimes connection stall...I went back to default win7 respawn and this is not happening even with Killer manager on.

Was not looking recently but since the issue was found as Im aware problem is still not resolved for R4 win8...

 

Had more disconnect problems with my 1103.

Specs:
Alienware M17x R4 Geforce 680M, 16 GB RAM, 120Hz Display, Windows 8.1

I'd been running the Windows default drivers for "Qualcomm Atheros Osprey Wireless Network Adapter" (what Windows detects the 1103 as) with no problems until this week when I started getting frequent disconnects again. I have to note that these disconnects only seem to happen on congested networks with 4/5 bars signal (hotel wireless).

I went to Device Manager and manually updated the driver to "Qualcomm Atheros AR9380 802.11a|g|n WiFi Adapter" (the Killer Wireless-N 1103's chipset is actually the half-height AR9380 model) and have been running without disconnects for 48 hrs straight. Signal strength seems to hanging at 5/5 bars more often too.

Posting this in case any other people with problems wander into this thread from Google. I've been pretty tempted to order the Intel 6300 to replace this thing but here's hoping this fixes it forever.

 

I am on Windows 8.1 Pro x64 fully up to date using the driver from Dell support website. The only available driver for Windows 8.1, version 10.0.1.263 listed as Killer 1103 in dev manager, it does not come with Killer network manager application. I tried downloading updated driver from the card manufacturer, but it does not work properly. I hope either Dell or Qualcomm are working on the updated driver version as using this card without the network manager application defeats the purpose of buying this upgraded card in the first place.

The driver that works ok can be downloaded below:
Driver Details | Dell UK