7260AC in T440s driving me crazy - solutions?

Hi everyone,

I've been rather patient with this Intel 7260AC wireless card that came in my T440s, but I can barely take it any more. After dozens of versions of the drivers, it's still barely able to keep a connection to access points (there was one driver that seemed to help, but the next iteration made it worse, but I didn't keep track of the version number for rollback.) and drops between different speeds. It definitely seems to be a widespread problem, I'm not the only one by a long shot:
https://communities.intel.com/message/243285?tstart=0#243285

Has anyone gotten this card to work? I've tried all of the usual suspects, such as changing power management, but this wireless card is as flakey as an old dial-up connection (and sometimes just as slow). Is it possible to replace it with something else, or is it soldered to the MB? Is this suggestive of a flawed card that needs replacing- has anyone had theirs replaced by Lenovo? Did it help?

My current router is an old Apple Timemachine, but these problems recur on a variety of networks. However, just out of curiosity, has anyone had better luck with an AC router?

Thanks!

 

Call up Lenovo support and have them replace the WLAN card. You've done plenty of troubleshooting.

 

If you don't have the time to deal with Lenovo, you can purchase a M.2 WLAN card on Amazon. It is about $21 and if you have problems with it, returns should be easy.
Amazon.com: 7260HMW IEEE 802.11ac Mini PCI Express Bluetooth 4.0 - Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Adapter: Computers & Accessories

 

Unless anything's changed, Lenovo whitelists the WiFi cards they use. So, you'd need a modified BIOS for that WiFi card to work, or you'll need to buy a version with a Lenovo FRU.

 

I manage to install an Intel 7260 AC card in a L440 without any problems.

 

If it's a Lenovo branded FRU then it should have no issue. If you install a non-branded WLAN card in HP/Lenovo, it will refuse to boot up.

 

seem to me the 7260 is no longer branded, some can probably test with a de ~whitelist HP on lenovo.
Actually l will test now since my bro is away from his HP.

Edit: just put a 7260ac in a sandybridge whitelist removed HP dv6 (intel) , works fine.
no error code in driver

 

@skander222,
I know one user in the German forum, who had his WLAN module (7260N) replaced, due to a defect. But all of the connection issues should be gone with the latest driver (17.0.5): Intel Wireless LAN (11abgn, 11bgn, 11ac) for Windows 8.1 (64-bit), 8 (64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad

Also, you have to make sure that:
- Windows does not have the permission to turn off the device to save energy (check out the driver)
- the WLAN performance is on the "Maximum" setting in the Windows energy managment

Works very good for me like that - virtually no disconnects.

 

I finally found a checkbox that seemed hidden away that was still allowing for power saving, turned that off (I think the driver updates reset it, so I'd assumed it was still off). The connection is better, certainly, but there are still huge drops in speed at arbitrary times, enough to ruin downloads and sometimes render streaming media barely watchable. I feel like one of the 17 version drivers prior to this was actually better, but again, it's incredibly annoying how bad Intel has been at addressing this. Reading recent horror stories about Lenovo service, I may hold off on having them do any work on the machine and hope that the intel drivers continue to improve it - obviously it's not entirely a hardware problem. The idea of just replacing it with an alternate card also sounds more complicated than it's worth at this point. I'll also wait to see what this poster's experience is with the Realtek card:
Re: T440s sees network but won't connect (even to ... - Page 3 - Lenovo Community

 

Just the opposite with my T440p. If I untick that box, I have no connection upon resuming from sleep and I have to restart the PC to get one. The AC part and its drivers are a pain in the a$$.

 

For what it's worth, disabling and reenabling the wifi card in device manager has worked for me thus far, no system reboot required. I did end up unticking the box (permission to turn off device to save energy), and haven't had issues since. I'm hoping my luck holds out here.

 

It is a non brand intel 7260 ac card that I got off of Amazon. I had no problem booting at all.

 

Anyone able to get a 7260AC card to switch bands to optimize signal strength? That is, if you're getting a 5GHz signal strong enough to exceed the throughput of the 2GHz band then the card will jump to or stay on the 5GHz band. And if you take the laptop away from the router to drop the signal on the 5GHz band, that the card will connect on the 2GHz band to up the signal strength.

My Intel part in a T440p will just sit on the band it's on, even if the connection drops entirely on the 5, or if on the 2, even if I'm standing next to the router.

Edit: Answer=No. According to Intel guy on their forum.

 

I had all the typical 7260AC problems until I did two things; one, I downloaded the latest driver direct from Intel's site, and I upgraded to an AC router (Apple Airport Extreme). Zero drop-outs since. Seems ridiculous that this combo is all that would fix it for me, seeing as how my T420 with the 6300 Ultimate-N had zero problems, but, just one of those things.

 

What model is the ac card you got from Amazon? A link to the item will be helpful. Thanks

 

Amazon.com: 7260NGW Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac, Dual Band, 2x2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0* - Ships from California. In STOCK: Computers & Accessories

I purchased my card from M-Factor.