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Dell XPS 15 9560 WiFi Problem
I just purchased a Dell XPS 15 9560 less than a week ago and the WiFi is causing some issues.
The speeds are good when I am right next to the router but if I move into the next room over (less than 3 meters away) the speed slows down dramatically (to about 0.5-3 mb/s).
There are 2 older laptops in the house and both of them have good speeds from anywhere in the house. One of them is also a Dell although not an XPS model.
I have updated the drivers and BIOS and I have spoken with tech support on the phone but they were not able to resolve the issue either.
Could this be a faulty wireless card or antennas?
bradhockey87
1 Message
1
June 24th, 2017 09:00
I also just got an XPS 15 9560, about 5 days ago. Pretty much since then, it has been disrupting my internet. I tried all of the things people have been trying (FYI I have an TP link archer C7 router). I called my ISP and they updated my modem settings, I reset my router and did a firmware update on it, I updated the Dell BIOS, and I also updated my Killer dnetwork card driver. I also did other things people suggested: changing my power mode to high performance, changing the killer network card roaming aggressiveness to medium-low. None of this seemed to really solve the problem. But, I found these two websites helpful:
www.reddit.com/.../
www.windowscentral.com/dell-xps-wifi-fix-upgrade-wireless
After seeing the thread on the first website above, I decided to call Dell support, because why should I settle for an inferior network card on a brand new laptop I just got? I told them about the issue and he pretty much knew right away what the problem was. Apparently the new/updated drivers on the Killer network card (which comes with the XPS 15 laptop) are causing the wifi problem. So, he sent me an email with a link to download a previous driver for the Killer network card that will fix issue. He did assure me that it shouldn't compromise the speed or performance of my wifi. Here is the link to do that:
www.dell.com/.../DriversDetails
So far, I haven't had any issues. However, if it comes back, I will be calling them back again and demanding an Intel wireless network card to replace the Killer one.
nmck11
5 Posts
0
April 29th, 2017 17:00
Yes I have a Killer Wlan card, I already spoke with dell support but they didn't do much help. I guess I can try them again. I will report back if I find out anything new.
c.chooper
144 Posts
1
April 29th, 2017 17:00
Very likely you have a Killer Wlan card. Contact Dell support and explain your connection problem,
most certainly, they will exchanged it for an Intel 8265 Wlan card.
nmck11
5 Posts
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April 29th, 2017 19:00
I just got off the phone with tech support, they couldn't resolve the issue. They didn't mention anything about replacing the card though. Don't know what I should do now.
Saltgrass
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4.3K Posts
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April 29th, 2017 20:00
Did you run the diagnostics on the networking while it was showing the problem?
Does it make a difference if you use the 2.4 G or 5.0 G radios?
A Wi-Fi signal doesn't normally drop off that much. You might use the other systems to see what they show as signal strength in the same areas.
If the diagnostics show a problem then maybe Dell will replace the card. If you are capable of opening it up you could check the antenna connections. But it could be either one. Does the Bluetooth work normally?
If you aren't into opening the system, all I can suggest is to download the Wireless driver and I saw one thread where the Killer rep suggested a driver. Then uninstall the Bluetooth and Wireless devices while checking the box to uninstall all drivers. Since you will be offline then the Wi-Fi driver you downloaded should be able to install without concern for prior installs.
You do have the option to replace the card if Dell will not. I have replaced the Wi-Fi card (not Killer) on two of my systems. This could mess with your warranty, so use best judgement, but your networking needs to work normally.
nmck11
5 Posts
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April 29th, 2017 21:00
I have tried basically everything at this point, and the Dell tech support tried a lot of stuff too with no affect on the issue.
The WiFi doesnt drop off as far as I can tell, it just gets slow very rapidly when the distance to the router is increased.
The wireless connection to the router still shows 300 mbps but when performing speed tests it is around 0.5 mbps when other laptops are showing around 15-20 mbps in the same location.
c.chooper
144 Posts
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April 30th, 2017 05:00
Saltgrass
3 Apprentice
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4.3K Posts
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April 30th, 2017 17:00
You did not address the different Wi-Fi radios, do you have a router which does both?
If the speed is dropping of with distance, the two things I would think might be involved is the Wi-Fi signal, which you say is still strong. The second thing would be some type of interference, which might cause the system to have to resend the data.
Any messages in the Event Viewer?
I think I would be ready to do one or both of the following.
First, use an external Wi-Fi adapter and check its operation. Second, I might try booting into a Live Linux distribution, like Ubuntu, you can run without installing to check the operation of the Killer Wireless outside of Windows.
nmck11
5 Posts
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April 30th, 2017 18:00
My laptop ended up not being able to boot, "no bootable device found". So I've been through the tech support again and they've decided to send out an engineer to replace the HDD and hopefully take a look at the wireless too.
I will update once the engineer has been if I find out anything new.
Not filling me with much confidence with the device so far with 2 major issues within a week.
jonstrong
23 Posts
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May 11th, 2017 14:00
If you haven't yet, I would update your drivers. There's an updated Killer Wi-Fi driver that fixes the issues that were common before. Also a new BIOS (1.2.4), new video drivers, and more. These will likely fix many issues, unless you have a real hardware problem.
tulap
1 Message
0
May 24th, 2017 08:00
I am also facing similar issues with my new Dell XPS 15 (9560) and did some research about resolving this issue. I did following
1. Update BIOS to latest version as of 24.05.2017
2. Update Killier wifi driver to latest version Version: 1.0.1028 from Killers website
www.killernetworking.com/.../other-downloads
3. In power management of the adapter setting I selected the option for Highest Performance
4. made sure there were no Channel overlapping between several wifi-router in my house (I have 3 in different floors)
What I observed was following
1. I observed very good performance with high end routers like Fritzbox 7460
2. The performance was bad with other older router (mainly o2 homebox 6431)
Note :
I measured this with my my old laptop (lenovo) and new Dell xps side by side. The signal strength was not great or excellent . The old laptop (lenovo yoga) never had issue with performance despite signal strength but the Dell XPS 15 had issue with performance.
But when I connected both the laptop to high end routers like Fritzbox AVM 7460 the connection speed in Dell XPS was almost on par or even better than my old lenovo laptop which uses Intel HD Wifi.
My take on this is that for some OLD routers the performance could be an issue for Dell XPS. I will once again try it out and post it in the forum. Let me know if others have seen similar observation ?