17 R4, Killer Network Suite/WLAN card killing WiFi

I found a read-only post with this title.  I think I found a fix to the Killer Wireless issues on the Alienware 17 R4.  I've been suffering from the same issues with wireless.

Initially what I heard is that you need to download the drivers from Killer, but don't install all the junk that comes with it.  Install only the drivers.  The optimization thing or whatever software doesn't work properly.

HOWEVER... I still had issues crop up here and there...

So I see that a bunch of people gave up and I noticed someone was talking about 2.4GHz speeds [insert 'but why?' meme here]...  either way, it had me thinking to look in the NIC Adapter properties on what the wireless mode was set to...

1.  Right click your wireless NIC and go to Properties.

2.  Click on "Configure"

3.  Go to the "Advanced" tab

4.  Click on the last thing in the menu "Wireless Mode"

5.  Set the wireless mode to "10 - 11 a/n/ac"

6.  ?????

7.  Profit

You might have to reboot.  It worked for me immediately though.  Chrome had this weird issue (that I thought was just Chrome) where for anywhere between 2-5 minutes after booting the laptop, the internet wouldn't work. It was odd because it looked like some other internet connected services worked, just not internet browsing.

Either way... I hope this helps a bunch of struggling Alienware 17 R4 users.

My theory on this is that the laptop was probably operating in mixed mode (2.4ghz+5ghz).  Setting it to the option I mentioned probably forced the card to only use the 5GHz band.  Even if it's a hardware or driver issue, this it at least a work around.

In case this is needed...

Running Windows 10

Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1435 Wireless Network Adapter

Qualcomm Atheros Communications Inc.

Driver Date: 2/28/2018

Driver Version: 12.0.0.468

I also just noticed that there's a "preferred band" option that you can force to 5 GHz band.  I'm not going to try it since I'm working fine now, but that might help you guys too.

Good luck.