replace Intel 7260 with Intel 8260?

I have an NP7378 (W370SS)

I have been running into some problems with the Intel 7260 wifi chip and from what I can tell the 8260 is better supported on Windows 10. I am pretty sure it is just an M.2 chip and I can get an 8260 on amazon for 25.

Can I just open up the laptop and take out the 7260 and replace it with an 8260 and have it work correctly?

Is there another wifi chip that is compatible and also does bluetooth that is a better option?

Thank you

 

Yep. As long as it's the same size/interface (m.2/PCIe), you're good. Just remove the driver for your current 7260 before physically installing the 8260. The latter is supported just fine in Win 10.

 

After doing a lot more looking it looks like the NP7378 is probably an HMC WiFi card and not m.2. It is hard enough to take apart I did not want to go that far to verify it but some sites like it as HMC so it looks like I can't easily replace it.

 

It's mini pci-e yes but I ran the 7260 just fine under Windows 10.

 

Yeah the 7260 works just fine on Windows 10 but you will need to change the driver. On my P377SM-A, I lost almost 50% of my peak connection speed when I upgraded and I had to roll the driver back but it's worked perfectly since.

 

The reason I was interested in changing it is that the newer chip is supposed to work better under windows 10 and I am having problems with bluetooth malfunctioning. It would work and then stop working.

I looked up on intel's site and it says that the 7260 uses a windows 8.1 driver under windows 10 and for wifi it works without any problems. I just figured if I could pay 25 and get a chip that was better supported it would solve some problems. The problem is the 8260 won't fit so I can't change it.

I will try rolling back to an older driver and see if that helps.

 

I've never had any Bluetooth issues with Windows 10, just WiFi throughput.

 

Make sure power saving is disabled in device manager for it.