Network Problems - Hardware or Windows 8.1?

Sup guys,

Having a pretty frustrating time with my AW 17 at the minute. Basically whenever it is connected to the internet, either by cable or WiFi, no other device in the house can maintain a steady internet connection. Video streams drop/facetime calls drop (my brother lives in Canada so it gets used A LOT) and basically nothing will work except basic web browsing. I feel i've tried everything under the sun to work out what's causing this:

I've checked network usage on the 17 and nothing stands out as using a ridiculous amount of bandwidth
Ran multiple virus scans
Updated the Broadcom 4352 to the Lenovo drivers because they're more up to date
Check for router firmware updates
Disabled every program individually through the firewall and non of them seem to be causing the issue

If I put the laptop in Airplane Mode all of a sudden everything else works fine. I'm just about at the end of my tether with this so I thought I should consult the forum to see if anyone can enlighten me!

One interesting point that could be related; it seems to date back to when I updated to Windows 8.1. But I don't see how this could be causing such a major problem..

Thanks

 

I'd say there's a 98% chance that Windows 8.1 is the cause of this issue. I doubt the hardware itself is damaged or defective. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to update to Windows 8.1 because of all of the issues presented in doing so. I'm still running Windows 7. Hopefully someone else can assist you further.

P.S. This should be posted in the Alienware 17 sub-forum: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/. Hopefully a moderator can move it.

 

Ok thanks, I'll focus efforts to fix it around the OS now, initially I thought it was the wireless card itself, hence posting it in this forum because the Broadcom 4352 is used in the 18 as well, as far as I know. The frustration continues!

 

I think you may be correct. I am running Windows 7 and 8.1 dual boot and there is simply no compelling reason to choose Windows 8.1 at the boot selection menu. I have my system configured to load Windows 7 as the default OS. I notice that my WiFi doesn't not seem to function as well under Windows 8.1 (feels slower and takes longer to connect during Windows startup) but I use Windows 7 99% of the time so it doesn't matter that much. If Windows 8.1 were my primary OS I probably would spend more time looking for a solution.

I am going to leave this in the main Alienware forum because it is likely one of the networking issues associated with Windows 8/8.1 that would not be specific to the Alienware 17.

 

Howdy Mr. Fox,

This response is a bit off-topic, but still pertains to your response to this post. I have used Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Pro, and now Windows 8.1 Pro on an M17xR4 purchased last July (2012). Between July and Oct (of 2012) when I was running Windows 7, I had no wireless problems (I exclusively use WiFi) at all. When I updated to Windows 8 in Oct of that year, I found that I could not use the Killer N drivers with my card, as it would not maintain a steady connection and frequently dropped. Using the default Microsoft drivers for the card, proved stable, and I found myself using them. When I updated to Windows 8.1 this past Oct, I again tried to use the Dell provided Killer-N drivers, and again had the unstable wireless. Interestingly, these issues do not show the card dropping the connection, it just suddenly stops processing the packets, and acts as if it is disconnected. So, I again reverted to the stock Microsoft driver. However under Windows 8.1, even these drivers are not completely stable, and I can watch the network "drop" and reconnect sporadically. The difference, is the reconnects occur quick enough that is only annoying, where with the Killer-N drivers, it would cause file transfers to stop, pages to stop loading, and online game sessions to drop. So it is better, but still wonky. You have mentioned in this post, and others that you prefer and still use Windows 7 most of the time, and my question pertains to that. I find myself dissatisfied with Windows 7 performance after running Windows 8/8.1. My laptop just feels so much faster under Windows 8, and in fact boots in only 15 seconds, where it takes a little over a minute running Windows 7. Do you not see the performance difference?

Tenspeed33,

Something that may help, is to go into the Device manager and turn off the power-saving features of your Wireless card. It is possible that the issues are related to Windows 8.1 aggressively powering down your WiFi card and causing the issues you describe. Basically, just uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" in the device properties. Not sure if it will help, but can't hurt

Thanks!

Rich S.

 

Makes sense.

By the way, your private messages seem to be disabled. I wanted to ask you something.

 

Thanks for the suggestion; strangely enough my brother said the quality had improved on the video call but unfortunately the problem still persists with EVERY device in the house. It's most frustrating because the only information I can find about wifi issues on windows 8.1 is to do with dropping connections, and typically I have the opposite. It's almost like my 17 is just a greedy bully. If worst comes to the worst I'm going to have to try the 'refresh' option in windows 8, but if that doesn't work and I have to redownload my steam library I won't be happy haha. Considering setting up a dual boot with windows 7, see if the same issue persists. If it doesn't then I know it's definitively the OS!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I turned it off because I am not on the forums much right now. I get tons of private messages every day and I don't want people to think I am being rude and ignoring them.

I am booting SSD RAID0 and I don't notice any difference in load times between Windows 7 and 8/8.1 at all. I haven't measured them to see which one is faster, but they are both loading so fast I haven't seen any point in bothering to check. I think the dumbed-down GUI quality of Windows 8/8.1 (no transparency, limited customization options, pastel colors, etc.) might make it feel a bit snappier for some folks. In most ways I cannot really tell much difference in performance. In benchmarks were CPU performance is important, I find that Windows 7 beats Windows 8/8.1 consistently. I find the Windows 7 GUI is more aesthetically pleasing. On my pathetically under-powered Dell Mini-9 Windows 8 does feel a bit peppier than WindowsXP, Windows 7 or Linux.

 

Quick update, seem to have fixed it but I'm not sure what finally managed to fix it exactly. I fiddled with QoS in my router settings adding priorities, removed the port forwarding I had on for utorrent, uninstalled and reinstalled a fresh chrome (I think this was the answer, possibly an infected browser as TCPView was showing some strange activity when Chrome wasn't even open), disabled WMM on my 17, restarted about a million times but it's working now. That's all I care about Thanks for input

 

I'm glad you could at least get it to work

@Mr. Fox - I also tried and could not send, I was wondering if you were on vacation or something. haha