Bought a 9260 to replace Realtek, not working

Question

Hello,

I have an Inspiron 15 3552 with a Pentium N3700 CPU in it. The wifi adapter that came with it started having issues of dropping out repeatedly so I picked up two Intel 9260NGWs from Amazon. (my sister has the same laptop and expressed interest as well). When they came in, I removed the old drivers and replaced the card.

The Bluetooth shows up and works in Device Manager but the wifi doesn't. No unknown devices, nothing - it's like it's not even there. The intel driver software loads then closes suddenly.

They're both on Windows 10 - 1809. Searching around google hasn't been any help, I get a lot of Linux posts but not very much for Windows. As far as I can read, there's no mention of Dell white-listing wifi cards so I'm not sure what the issue could be.

Anyone have any ideas of what it could be or what I could try before I return these cards to Amazon?

Thank you.

gen_angry · Accepted Answer

So a late update for those that stumble upon this - I tried a few different 9260s and they all did the same thing.

So I gave an 8260 a try and it worked. Seems this laptop is just not compatible with 9260s for whichever reason. Oh well, can't expect much on it's budget.

Since replacing it, I've had no more dropouts and the connection is always 5 bars. So if you've got wifi issues, pick up a cheap 8260 on amazon or ebay and switch er out. It's still plenty fast for what the laptop can do anyways.

nyc10036 · Answer

@gen_angry wrote:

Hello,

I have an Inspiron 15 3552 with a Pentium N3700 CPU in it. The wifi adapter that came with it started having issues of dropping out repeatedly so I picked up two Intel 9260NGWs from Amazon. (my sister has the same laptop and expressed interest as well). When they came in, I removed the old drivers and replaced the card.

The Bluetooth shows up and works in Device Manager but the wifi doesn't. No unknown devices, nothing - it's like it's not even there. The intel driver software loads then closes suddenly.

They're both on Windows 10 - 1809. Searching around google hasn't been any help, I get a lot of Linux posts but not very much for Windows. As far as I can read, there's no mention of Dell white-listing wifi cards so I'm not sure what the issue could be.

Anyone have any ideas of what it could be or what I could try before I return these cards to Amazon?

Thank you.

Do you have the latest version of chipset driver installed?

gen_angry · Answer

Yep, at least according to dell's support site and intel's "find drivers" tool. Was really odd, it's like the wifi chip is completely gone.

Ubuntu liveboot lshw, lspci, nor lsusb didn't show anything either. No unknown devices, no indication that these even exist.

Read on here about these 'scrappers', these might have been two of them. I just ended up returning them, will just buy from a different vendor.

Thank you :)

Inspiron

Bought a 9260 to replace Realtek, not working

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