Upgrading wireless card

Hi there, I have an MSI GT70 and the intel 7260 that is in it performs horrendously. It seems to be a very common issue after reading around and there seems to be no fix. What is the best performing wireless card (without known issues) out there that I can purchase online that would work in my laptop. Thank you

 

Is that the N7260 or the AC7260?

 

It's the 7260 AC, sorry. Is there an equivalent from Bigfoot? What model? Thanks

 

What O/S, drivers and router/firmware are you using that you're finding the AC7260 'horrendous'?

With Win8.1 x64 and an N900 class router or above (Asus preferred, with latest firmware), that is the card I would have recommended.

 

I'm using the century link pk5000. I have century link so there are only two models I can use and has the latest firmware. It's windows 8.1 with latest 17.1 drivers. I've tried 3 other previous drivers as well.

 

If you're using any ISP provided router/modem combo, all bets are off.

See:
802.11g Wireless DSL Modem Router for CenturyLink (Qwest) DSL - PK5000 for CenturyLink (Qwest) DSL


If the above is your router, this was great about a decade ago (G standard wireless... huh? Max 54Mbps).


If you can bridge that combo box to simply provide direct and unfettered access to the internet, I can recommend:

RT-N66U - bare minimum 'upgrade'. While not an AC class router like your AC7260 is - it is much better hardware and the 5GHz band can possibly give you greater throughput than what you now experience (especially at short/medium distances).

RT-AC56U - this is the minimum AC class router I can recommend (it is AC1200 class...). Great platform (cpu/firmware combo) and very fast with good range.

RT-AC68U - this is the most stable AC1900 class router right now.


With all the above, I recommend this firmware:

See:
Asuswrt-Merlin - custom firmware for Asus routers - SmallNetBuilder Forums


Right now, it seems like your router is the 'broken' part - not the wifi card installed.

 

Hi Tiller,

Thanks for the great advice. I thought it may be due to the router, but I have no option other than sticking with it. I've never bridged a router, but I assume it is just connecting my combo to the router via ethernet cable and it should work?

Thanks for the help

 

The physical part is exactly as you said.

The logical part is getting the ISP supplied combo to simply be a modem. Turn off the radio. Turn off NAT. Simply allow anything you connect to it to be seen by anyone on the outside world*.

* Hint: the router you connect will show the WAN IP as anything other than a Private IP (it will be a public one):

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255

The above are the allowable Private IP addresses our internal LANs can use. Anything outside those ranges is accessible from anyone on the outside world (internet) and that is what you want a new router to see.


Glad to have been helpful.