Inconsistend Intel Wireless-N 7260 behavior Linux vs Windows

Hello everyone.

I've recently got a system based on the Clevo P370SM assembled by a local company. Theoretically I got an Intel WiFi card inside : "Intel Wireless-N 7260", at least that's what it's detected by the latest Intel drivers (16.1.5). In windows the device seems to have at some driver issues. It won't drop the AP connection but it will ocasionally loose the internet connectivity, as far as I could figure it out it looks like it's freezing all transfer. The traybar icon reports no internet connection but the lan is down too, it's like the router talks to me but forwards no packets to the network. I need to mention Windows only shows up 2.4Ghz networks which is fine as Intel is describing the product.

On the same machine I've installed the latest Ubuntu and after adding the firmware for it's driver even more interesting things show up. First of all this specific model of 7260 only supports 2.4Ghz networks, as stated on Intel's website. Oh well, Linux has no problem in detecting and connecting to 5Ghz networks at 300Mbs. It seems to oscillate between 150Mbs mode and 300Mbs but the traffic drops don't occur here. This got me thinking if that card is actually the N version of 7260 or another and that's why the Windows driver acts up from time to time.

I've been digging in the hw info in linux and I have these data:

Slot: 05:00.0
Class: 0280
Vendor: 8086
Device: 08b1
SVendor: 8086
SDevice: 4062
Rev: 63

Same ids show up in VENDORID string in windows. After a bit of web surfing I found some guys was wondering why his AC 7260 is detected as N 7260 on the intel support pages. There the SDevice id for AC seems to be 4070. However it's still odd, as his N 7260 had the SDevice id 4060.


The next step will be to unscrew the laptop and see what exactly it's written on the card but I am wondering if there is anything I can do to make Windows stabilize a bit. I would like at least to find a way to not get the network outages.

Anyone else experienced similar issues or has any clue on what exactly is the wifi card model?

Small note, funny enough, the intel java applet used to detect hardware for driver updates on their website detects the device as an AC 7260 but forcing the AC 7260 driver in windows does not yield any different behavior in windows, no 5Ghz network and still the ocasional traffic drop.

Thanks,
Andrei

 

Are you entirely sure the issue of the connectivity loss is down to the card? If the computer picks up the fact that it's installed sometimes then sometimes doesn't, it sounds like hardware, yes. But if it shows that you're connected and the connectivity is just what's going down, could it be that your network is experiencing issues? I've had someone once ask about an issue with this very card in which he assumed it would be the card's problem but turned out his kids were all hitting the internet hard at once and dropping his connectivity so badly that he couldn't load a page.

 

I got a similar problem. I think it's a faulty card problem.
Do you fix the issue?

 

The card is definitely faulty - a quick Google search for "Inel 7260 issues" will reveal how many people are affected by this problem. Intel has released a component that is buggy and not fit for purpose, and OEMs have blindly included this faulty component in their laptops without proper testing / QA.

A "workaround" is to disable 802.11n.

On Windows:

1. Open Control Panel | System Security | System.
2. Open Device Manager on the left hand side of the window.
3. Click on Network Adapters.
4. Right-click on Intel Wireless 7260, and click on properties.
5. Click on Advanced Tab.
6. Click on HT Mode and disable it (turn it off).

On Linux:

1. Open terminal.
2. sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/wifi-disable11n.conf
3. Add this line: options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1
4. Save and restart.

It means using a slower network, but at least it will be reliable.