Unique problem with intermittent wifi on alienware m17x with qualcomm killer wireless

Strangely enough I tried all the updates available from the manufacturer.  (Atheros) and so far this is the only thing that fixed it.  If you are concerned though, you can always try to dig around their terrible website for driver updates.  It may be available there now.

Thanks for sharing the useful information. I have enjoyed to read this article.

Thanks Rajata... maybe there's hope.  Been a faithful Alienware owner for years now... this whole issue has me taking a closer look at other machines.  Surprised Dell isn't getting in front of this.  My warranty is about to expire on mine soon.  Not sure if renewing it will be a waste of time and money.  So far, the tech support for this issue has not produced any results long term for me.

I have an Alienware 15 and the Killer 1505 Wireless card. I don't get random disconnects however I do get strange network behavior where my speed will go from normal to <0.8 mb/sec and produces large ping spikes on games i.e League of Legends, CS:GO etc... Tried everything and I know it has to do with the Killer drivers (I have latest ones from their website) because I get this even on a wired connection.

Same issues here, has anyone come up with a solution yet?

I have the same issue with a brand new alpha i7. super disappointing. I bought this computer specifically to not have PC hassles for steam gaming and now I'm thinking I should just return it and get a PS4 instead. 

Hi,

I have the same problem.

It's an Alienware 17 with W 8.1 and the wifi is Intel dual band wireless-ac 7260.

recently, I noticed that the wifi speed degraded. I have a 50 / 50 Mbps from Bell Canada. Before (few weeks ago) I was able to get 50 / 50 without any problem.

But now, the upload is very bad, goes up to 35 and sometimes 3.6 only.

I tried to update the drivers, etc... nothing worked.

But, it's weird because in safe mode with network, I have no problems. it's working very well. as you can see:

What would be the problem?

Any help?

please.

Thank you.

Hi All,

I too have the Alienware 17, and solved the Wifi dropping connection problem!

I'm using the Broadcom 802.11ac Network adapted with the Killer e2200 Ethernet Controller, obviously the problem was with the wifi adapter so in the Properties>Advanced>WMM I just disabled it. 

Its been a few hours now but it definitely worked.

The problem seems to be connecting to certain types of routers.  I travel and my hotspot on my phone always connects.  I go to my mom's and have no problem connecting to her router.  I stayed in three motels and had a problem at two motels. I connected at the second motel and finally connected at the last one. Never got connected to the first motel.  So seems the wireless adaptor has a problem with some routers.

My issue with my Killer Wireless card was fixed by the following procedure,

!!!! IMPORTANT !!!! have your wireless card installer software downloaded and ready to be installed...

1. Open Device Manager

2. Find Network adapters, Find the Killer Wireless device.

3. Right click it and say Uninstall, if it allows tick the box that also deletes the driver files.

4. Run the Wireless card driver installer you previously should have downloaded.

5. Restart your computer.

6. Finally connect to your network again, and type the password. 

Your issue should be solved and your WiFi card should not be stuck at 12 Mbps anymore.

I got my AC back from 12 Mbps to 866.7 Mbps with this method on my Alienware 17 R2 (Early 2015)

Hope this helps you guys out, don't waste your time removing the Killer Wireless adapter like I did, re-seating it did not fix it, it was a driver issue.

Funny enough I have exactly the same problem on my brand spanking new Alienware 17 R3... yes, the one with skylake processor...

and yes, I have like half a dozen routers, all kind of interesting stuff and those didn't help one bit, as everyone here already know.

Since I'm also dealing with my lousy Micron M500 mSATA drive that overheats (and promptly shut itself off) and doesn't like to work on my new laptop, it got me thinking.

The Killer WIFI:
Always WORK when I boot up.
Always WORK when I left it idle and then come back.
Always WORK when I'm browsing.
Always *** OUT when I'm logged in to a online game for a while.
Always *** OUT when I'm dumping or leeching large files from my NAS.
Always *** OUT when I'm trying to download large file (like the 6GB recovery ISO file for my laptop)

That got me thinking, what if the card is not cooled well enough to maintain a constant connection, not really dependent with the amount of data being pumped out, just any type of constant connection that didn't allow any kind of break for it to cool off?

For example, people here have problem in skype, which clearly you wouldn't be able to allow the card to shut it's radio off for a few seconds during transfer, and online games that requires several updates per second...

Since there won't be much of an airflow around it, heatsink might not help that much, but mine is next to the CPU, I'm thinking about placing a block of copper or aluminum there to act as a bridge to pass the heat onto the CPU heatsink.

I know, I know the network card is covered by a metal cage that didn't touch the chips, and the label on top of it didn't really help in conducting heat, but it will still help to a certain degree...  Maybe I'll give that a shot later?

thank you so much i have an alienware 15 laptop its only a year old and it suddenly just kept cutting in and out on the internet but your solution fixed my problem thanks so much regards les =)