@walwar The 9260 is a very good WiFi card. It shouldn't be struggling with 4K YouTube video. That only requires about 20 Mbps of bandwidth, and the 9260 can handle real-world speeds of at least 400 Mbps in my own personal experience. Have you confirmed that the issues you're seeing there are actually related to bandwidth rather than something local on the system? How much bandwidth can you pull down on Fast.com? If you can achieve good speeds there, then WiFi throughput isn't your issue.
If on the other hand you have trouble on Fast.com, the next generation card to try would be the Intel AX200, which supports 802.11ax (WiFi 6), but WiFi 6 doesn't deliver a huge improvement in raw throughput or range. Its improvements are mainly around improving throughput in congested environments. So in that case I would consider replacing your router. Not all 802.11ac routers are equal by any stretch. Many 802.11ac routers provided by ISPs are utter garbage, for example. A neighbor of mine complained about WiFi throughput on her new ISP-issued router because she could only get about 40 Mbps over WiFi. I brought over my own ASUS RT-AC88U router, which is a high-end 802.11ac router, and she was able to get her full 300 Mbps Internet connection over WiFi. The router itself would have gone higher if she had a faster Internet connection. And she was able to get that speed from farther away.
I also thought that there might be something else in the system that doesn't function properly but I haven't found any issue though my troubleshooting, the drivers are updated and I even reinstalled Windows 10 as a last resort but I still get the same issue with YouTube 4K videos.
I threw out the ISP provided router when I received it, I even told them not to send me one and that I will throw it away. My setup is as follows:
Fiber 200/200 Mbits => Firewall (Cisco firepower 1010) => UniFi AP (I tried with another Firewall (fortigate) and AP but still have the same issue with my Dell) on the other hand my Macbook Pro works like charm, no issues even with 8K videos.
Will that WLAN (Intel AX200) card work on my system?
I checked now with fast.com and I at best get 13 Mbps, instead of 165+ Mbps. Does the Intel AX200 works on my system? Or is there a better WLAN card than AX200?
@walwar I don't have that specific system to test with, but the AX200 is a dual antenna M.2 card that doesn't have any dependency on technology like CNVio, so it should work fine in your system. I've never seen Dell systems arbitrarily block compatibility with WiFi cards as other vendors have at least in the past, and I've successfully upgraded WiFi cards in previous systems, including an XPS 15 9530 that I upgraded from a 7260 to a 9260.
All that said, if you're only getting 13 Mbps while other devices connected to the same WiFi network are doing fine, then something is definitely wrong on your system, which makes me question whether a new WiFi card will fix it. If your current WiFi card is defective, then sure, but before you buy anything, I'd suggest reseating the antennas on your existing WiFi card. That was the fix when I was helping someone else with a problem like this. The most effective way to seat antennas is to remove the WiFi card from its slot so that you can get a finger underneath it. Then for each of the two antenna cables, press your thumb over the antenna and put your index finger on the underside of the card below the antenna connector and "pinch" the antenna onto the card's connector. Then reseat the card in the M.2 slot.
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
1
April 14th, 2021 18:00
@walwar The 9260 is a very good WiFi card. It shouldn't be struggling with 4K YouTube video. That only requires about 20 Mbps of bandwidth, and the 9260 can handle real-world speeds of at least 400 Mbps in my own personal experience. Have you confirmed that the issues you're seeing there are actually related to bandwidth rather than something local on the system? How much bandwidth can you pull down on Fast.com? If you can achieve good speeds there, then WiFi throughput isn't your issue.
If on the other hand you have trouble on Fast.com, the next generation card to try would be the Intel AX200, which supports 802.11ax (WiFi 6), but WiFi 6 doesn't deliver a huge improvement in raw throughput or range. Its improvements are mainly around improving throughput in congested environments. So in that case I would consider replacing your router. Not all 802.11ac routers are equal by any stretch. Many 802.11ac routers provided by ISPs are utter garbage, for example. A neighbor of mine complained about WiFi throughput on her new ISP-issued router because she could only get about 40 Mbps over WiFi. I brought over my own ASUS RT-AC88U router, which is a high-end 802.11ac router, and she was able to get her full 300 Mbps Internet connection over WiFi. The router itself would have gone higher if she had a faster Internet connection. And she was able to get that speed from farther away.
walwar
1 Rookie
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7 Posts
0
April 15th, 2021 02:00
I also thought that there might be something else in the system that doesn't function properly but I haven't found any issue though my troubleshooting, the drivers are updated and I even reinstalled Windows 10 as a last resort but I still get the same issue with YouTube 4K videos.
I threw out the ISP provided router when I received it, I even told them not to send me one and that I will throw it away. My setup is as follows:
Fiber 200/200 Mbits => Firewall (Cisco firepower 1010) => UniFi AP (I tried with another Firewall (fortigate) and AP but still have the same issue with my Dell) on the other hand my Macbook Pro works like charm, no issues even with 8K videos.
Will that WLAN (Intel AX200) card work on my system?
walwar
1 Rookie
•
7 Posts
0
April 16th, 2021 10:00
I checked now with fast.com and I at best get 13 Mbps, instead of 165+ Mbps. Does the Intel AX200 works on my system? Or is there a better WLAN card than AX200?
jphughan
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
April 16th, 2021 10:00
@walwar I don't have that specific system to test with, but the AX200 is a dual antenna M.2 card that doesn't have any dependency on technology like CNVio, so it should work fine in your system. I've never seen Dell systems arbitrarily block compatibility with WiFi cards as other vendors have at least in the past, and I've successfully upgraded WiFi cards in previous systems, including an XPS 15 9530 that I upgraded from a 7260 to a 9260.
All that said, if you're only getting 13 Mbps while other devices connected to the same WiFi network are doing fine, then something is definitely wrong on your system, which makes me question whether a new WiFi card will fix it. If your current WiFi card is defective, then sure, but before you buy anything, I'd suggest reseating the antennas on your existing WiFi card. That was the fix when I was helping someone else with a problem like this. The most effective way to seat antennas is to remove the WiFi card from its slot so that you can get a finger underneath it. Then for each of the two antenna cables, press your thumb over the antenna and put your index finger on the underside of the card below the antenna connector and "pinch" the antenna onto the card's connector. Then reseat the card in the M.2 slot.