Replace AR9485 Wireless Adapter

I recently bought a new laptop from Best Buy - an ASUS S56CA-BH51-CB i5. I'm already on #2 - on the first one the video card went within 2 weeks! On this one the Wireless card (an Atheros AR9485) is flaky - I'll be disconnect when downloading a file, or just doing nothing. I know the router is fine - my wife's MacBook stays connected even when mine drops out. Yesterday I connected a spare USB wireless adapter (a dLink DWA-130) - the wifi is solid and a lot faster.

Is it worth it to replace this adapter? I'm kinda hesitant to go the warranty route since I'm already on #2 and everything on this one seems to work fine - other than this wifi issue! The other option I'm looking at is just getting a small USB hub (I'm out of USB ports) and leave this one connected - only use the integrated one on the road (if I don't have my tablet for some reason). I looked and can't find anything that mentioned if this adapter is changeable, or if the unit is hardware-locked.

Does anyone know?

Thanks,

Brian

 

Low end WIfi cards I find are very prone to instability and aren't very good with prolonged throughput demand (i.e. long downloads). They are also more sensitive to interference and have very poor obstructed performance.

the first question you should answer is if your WIFI module is removable. Some machines require a lot of disassembly just to access the miniPCIe board. The next step is to ensure that there are no warranty stickers that may be broken during the process of removing the WIFI card. If the above two conditions are met then you can consider alternative top-end modules such as the more powerful AR9380 which has superb throughput or the Intel 6300 which has better range and more stable obstructed performance with less throughput. If you wish to keep your bluetooth (which I'm assuming you are) then you can consider the Intel 6235, the hardware is pretty good (not the absolute best) but the Intel drivers are rock solid with frequent updates.
Something to be cautious about is if your machine whitelists Wifi cards, I haven't encountered ASUS machines which do so but I know HP and Lenovo have deployed this in the past so it will be a real hindrance to your upgrade.

I'm hesitant to recommend the Killer cards simply based on price, whether they're good or not is uncertain since the opinion is very mixed and I haven't got any personal experience.

 

Hmmm - looking at this, maybe the best thing would be to leave the internal miniPCIe wifi alone and use an external one over USB at home!