XPS-13 wireless: Broadcom vs. Intel

My system update.

I had to bite the bullet and expressed an Intel card which has made wifi usable immediately where it was totally unusable prior. Can't believe they use the *** Broadcom unit which on my PC was over two years old based on manufacture date. Unfortunately I have to say that overall wifi reception is still nothing as good as my Dell Latitude or my MS Surface Pro 3. So, in anything but plain view of a router it still fades in and out while other systems are stable. Interestingly this seems to be less of an issue of 5G vs 2.4G wifi.

Still can't believe pay so much money for a premium laptop and have to deal with this kind of issue.

it just performs poorly.

What performs poorly? The wifi? In what sense? Signal?

Very disappointed in this regard about the XPS 13.

What does the custom WIFI card you bought have to do with XPS 13? You think the poor WIFI performance is due to the motherboard or something else to do with XPS besides your custom Intel card?

I have same experience. I think it have something to do with the design, choice of material and location of the antennas in XPS 13

TheNitai it just performs poorly. What performs poorly? The wifi? In what sense? Signal? TheNitai Very disappointed in this regard about the XPS 13. What does the custom WIFI card you bought have to do with XPS 13? You think the poor WIFI performance is due to the motherboard or something else to do with XPS besides your custom Intel card?

My comment was in regards to the Broadcom card. However, even with the Intel card the Wifi performs poorly. I don't think I have to go into what poorly means, as just about everyone who owns a Xps13 says the same on this forums. It's not a secret after all that the Xps13's Wifi is the weakest part.

The intel wifi card was a huge improvement for me.  no signal issues, great performance...  i'll consider myself as a lucky XPS13 owner.

The intel wifi card was a huge improvement for me.  no signal issues, great performance...  i'll consider myself as a lucky XPS13 owner.

Yes, it is an improvement, but nowhere near what other devices have. A speed test of uploading/downloading the same file to the same server one time with a MacbookPRo and the XPS13 on the same network sitting next to each other, reveals that the Macbook is faster by about 2 seconds (every time).

Also the connection stability is much better with the Macbook. I can walk with both laptop around and see that the XPS13 is showing "lower bars" in the menu.

I'm not saying it is horrible, just that the XPS13 might be prone to interference more than other devices.

I also found the Intel card a huge improvement but the signal sensitivity could be better though it's still acceptable and stable.

Interesting comparison! Thanks for the details. Hopefully this improves. I don't think Dell can currently do anything about this though. First let's just hope they switch to Intel wifi, then maybe we can focus on getting better Intel driver.

I'm not so sure it's a driver problem. It might as well be the physical construction of the XPS.

Ah, such as something blocking the signal? Could be. I never thought of that. One way to test between your theory and my theory would be to know how the wireless signal is on Windows. However, I am not at all interested in installing Windows to find out.

I found this on a Debian forum:

Known Issues

Frequent disconnections can be experienced. This may be resolved by disabling power management via:

iwconfig(8) (e.g. iwconfig wlan0 power off)

laptop-mode-tools: set WIRELESS_BATT_POWER_SAVING=0 within /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/wireless-power.conf

It worked for me! I finnaly stopped experiencing the annoying disconnections!

I still found a problem in the solution above. The power management was going back to ON whenever the power cable was unplugged. There is a solution here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/606446/power-management-for-wireless-unable-to-turn-off-in-xubunu-15-04-vivid/614245#614245

I have had some serious issues with the Broadcom working properly.  I would have to uninstall/re-install the driver constantly just to get the wifi to connect.  Just bought the Intel 7265 and installed it.  Wireless performance is much better already.  From a stability standpoint, too early to tell, but I have a good feeling this will solve my issues.  Shame on Dell for putting a *** Wifi card in a high end laptop.