XPS-13 wireless: Broadcom vs. Intel

Shouldn't this be covered and fixed by warranty? My XPS13 2015 edition drops wifi connection at home every five minutes. It works just fine at work, but every other device I own has no trouble at home.

You'd think working WIFI would be a high priority when designing a laptop without a network port. Now wouldn't you?

Am I seriously going to have to get out my solder to use a computer I paid thousands for?

I just installed that Intel 7265 referenced above. Works perfectly, much better than the OEM Broadcom. No solder needed for install, and the XPS-13 opens up with only torx 5 and clips, nothing is glued.

Works immediately upon boot, no drivers to install. Bluetooth works seamlessly out of the box, no need to hack drivers like with the Broadcom. And Bluetooth continues working after waking from suspend, which never worked on the Broadcom even after patching the driver. And it does not crash, doesn't need a patch.

This is definitely the card that Dell should ship as OEM in this XPS-13.

Interestingly my XPS13 came with the intel chipset out of the box (bought this in Europe)

02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 (rev 59)

Stlll, it works very badly and requires frequent reboots etc. So clearly i might have to ship this as a dud to dell.

Which kernel/OS?

I'm thinking of buying this Intel wireless too, and install Fedora or Arch right after.

edit: http://www.amazon.fr/Intel-double-bande-7260NGW-802-11abgn/dp/B00SFJ9DGU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433611462&sr=8-1&keywords=7265NGW

is this the same one? I see some other numbers near ASIN, WFM etc.
Are they compatible in Europe?

that's funny, i bought this two weeks ago, seems to be a bit of a lottery then :)

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

Also from Europe, bought 10 days ago.

Doesn't that void the warranty?

That's the card I installed - 7265NGW Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265.
It has been working flawlessly under Fedora 22. 

I had no success getting the original Broadcom to work under Fedora 21 or 22, although it worked with the factory Ubuntu install.

Just to add my 2 cents, if you are unlucky enough to get a unit with the 1560 like I did, just bite the bullet and spend the $30.00 to get the Intel 7265. Dell will not admit to any performance issues with the Broadcom even though my first generation iPad air had better 802.11ac performance than my i7 based XPS 13 (and, under some conditions, so did my iPhone 6!). All my years-old 802.11n devices were faster on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz than the XPS 13 too. 

Dell support considers this level of performance normal - I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions from that.

Win 10, and Fedora 22 are working great with the Intel card and performance is now what I expected out of the box. 

hi all, i know this is an old thread but i'm having bluetooth and wifi issues on my xps13-2015 model w/Win 10 and the Broadcom 1560 card.  half the time upon boot and waking from suspend, bluetooth is disabled, cannot be turned on via toggle but eventually comes on approx 5-10 minutes after boot.  my issue with wifi is the flakely-most-of-the-time lack of support for Hotspots.  i got it working once with the MS WiFi Direct Virtual Adapter but after reboot it no longer works, and this for 3 months. does anyone have any suggested work arounds? if not, then i'm going to get the intel wifi card as well. thanks in advance to anyone that replies..

Sep 10 2015 Update:  Purchased the Intel Combo Wifi/Bluetooth card and all issues resolved. Bluetooth connects instantly (no driver errors or disabled at start up) and Hosted Networking (Hotspots) working as well.

Seems a very common issue. XPS 13 (2015) horrible wifi from the moment I turned it on out of the box. Wifi fades in and out continually on numerous networks making this PC pretty much unusable for normal work. Thankfully have Pro Support and they changed motherboard, wifi card and antenna setup no fix. I have tried to insist on the Intel wifi card referenced as this is mentioned in numerous places on the web but I have to send system back in for investigation. Gotta say Dell support is still fantastic but not happy brand new system I desperately need is not working.

I suggest everyone and anyone should post here how poor the Broadcom card is and get Dell to ditch it totally.

Also the same problem here: WIFI lousy, Bluetooth essentially unuable. Could anyone help please: which precise model do I need: 7265AC or 7265NGW AN, see the following link. They seem to look identical. I could not figure out whether they are identical.

http://www.amazon.de/876M-Wlan-Karte-Intel-7265/dp/B00VWKR8DO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

Any help is highly appreciated.

Ordered this one the other day and works perfectly.

www.amazon.com/.../B00RCZ4I6S;redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

Same here. Bough the Intel card in hope that it will perform better. Well it does, but as you say, compared to my MacBook Pro, Surface Pro 3, iPad, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S3, Kindle... I think you get the idea... it just performs poorly.

Very disappointed in this regard about the XPS 13.