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January 29th, 2013 21:00
{MOVED}Major Problem - Intel® Advanced-N WiFi Link 6250 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO Technology with WiMax and Bluetooth 4.0
I just received my new Alienware M14X R2 and for the most part it is amazing but I have been having nothing but problems with the wireless card. I am military and deployed and our only internet connectivity is WiFi and with my previous laptop (Sony Vaio) I had an Atheros Wireless Card that worked great.
The issue I am having is that when I browse the interent it is fine but if I download something at any significant speed via a newsgroup or something it will lose wifi connectivity. It will start going fast and then just cut out completely. I can turn it off and on or if I use the troubleshooting tool it will reset the adapter. It just does this over and over and will not download at a stable/fast speed at all. Also, sometimes it will actually cause the system to lock up and I will have to hard reboot.
I've updated to the newest drivers from Intel 15.3.1. I've found something about a Power Saving Polling problem but it was only applicable to XP because in Windows 7 the only power option is to disallow the computer to turn off your wireless connection.
This is very frustrating because I'm constantly having to reset the adapter and or the wireless connection due to it dropping out. I'm having to go back to my other laptop if I want to download anything big because if I try on the new laptop it will take dozens of resets and probably a couple of computer lockups.
I've also done a complete reinstall of Windows 7 Home Premium and it changed nothing. On very rare occasions the connection will stay stable for awhile but for the most part it will download at the top speed for a moment or two then degrade multiple times trying to recover but then just totally drop out and give me the exclamation point.
Does anyone have a solution to this problem or any ideas that I can try? I hope I don't have to end up sending the computer back because I don't even know how I can do it from this deployed location and the time to get it there and back would be crazy. Other than this wireless issue it works amazing but it's a pretty big issue unless I bought a gaming PC just to browse the internet which I didn't =(.
PudgyOne
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January 30th, 2013 12:00
Gh0str1der1982,
I think the article was Intel® WiFi Products — Power Save Polling (PSP) causes connection issues with some access points
Go to Drivers & Downloads enter your service tag number, then select your operating system. Under Network, download and install the latest drivers.
Try these tweaks....
Start, control panel, device manager. Click on Network and then right click on your wireless adapter, left click properties, power management. Uncheck the box, allow computer to turn off this device to save power.
Click on advanced. Look and see if this adapter has antenna diversity. If it does have antenna diversity, change it from Auto to Aux. (If this does have antenna diversity, please let me know so I can add this to me notes)
Also try Intel ~ Recommended settings for 802.11n connectivity
Maybe this applies...
Go to start > device manager > advanced > bandwidth capability > change to 20/40mhz
Go to the power options, and changed the Wireless Adapter Setting, from Maximum Power Setting to Maximum Performance.
Rick
Gh0str1der1982
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January 30th, 2013 12:00
Rick,
Thank you for the reply.
The drivers on the site are older than the ones on the Intel website and give me worse performance than the newest ones (i.e. as soon as start downloading something fast the connectivity completely drops off and the adapter has to be reset).
Your first tweak I had already done with turning off the ability for the PC to turn off the adapter
The second one was not applicable it does not have antenna diversity in the advanced tab.
I had looked at the Intel recommended settings for 802.11n previously and I had 2.4ghz at 20mhz only but changed it back to AUTO to see if it makes a difference though it didn't recently.
The option for going to device manager and changing the bandwith capability to 20/40mhz is not anywhere that I can find so either I'm looking in the wrong place or you mean the 2.4/5.2 settings in the advanced tab I already set to auto.
Finally, the power setting are at maximum performance on both battery and plugged in as I have it set at default high performance.
I'm at a loss, not only does it drop off or throttle a lot of the time but sometimes like 10mins ago when it dropped off and I went to reset the adapter it locked up the computer causing me to have to do a hard reboot. Now if I didn't have another laptop right here (my old one) that can download full speed without dropping out or throttling I would think maybe it's the subpar service here but the service actually isn't that bad. When it's not peak hours I can download from WiFi in my room at above 40mpbs bandwidth. However, with my new laptop I don't see that for very long as it will cut out or throttle quickly with me having to reset over and over until it's done downloading or it freezes my PC.
Alienware-Karen
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January 30th, 2013 13:00
Hello Gh0str1der1982,
I read the thread about the issue you are experiencing, please send me a PM with your service tag, phone number and the link to this thread, I will review your case.
PudgyOne
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January 30th, 2013 13:00
Gh0str1der1982,
I cannot find the sevice manual to see if you can check to see if the antenna wires are on securely or not. Some are too hard to get to.
I'm going to move this post to the Alienware Board and maybe someone there can help you.
Rick