[SOLVED] Troubleshoot / Replace Wireless Network Card ????

[Witterings]

My laptop has an intel dual band wirerless-ac 7260 which keeps diconecting and for ages thought it was either the router or some IP conflict but now I think it's the network card on the laptop.

If I connect to 2.4 I don't seem to have any problems but if I connect the the 5g it's only a matter of time until it falls over (compunded every tie I transfer files across the network) and often says that network's not available if I try and re-connect to it.

When it stops working if I click on the Network icon sometimes it shows other networks available including the 2.4 from the same router and other times the list of available connections is completely blank.

Has anybody got any ideas how to troubleshoot this and isolate what the problrm is, if it' a hardware issue can I replace it with another wireless card or am I just better off getting a USB Wireless Network Adapter which would be my last ideal choice as I use the USB ports for number of other things.

EDITED: Bit of an afterthought ... other devices on the Network seem to work perfectly most of the time although there has been the odd occasion where I've been transferring large files across the network and it sees to have affected other devices although there are also times I can't connect / see the network and other devices are working perfectly.

 

[bill001g]

5g generally has less coverage so when it works you get faster speed but it may not work in as many places. Try the pc right next to the router and see if it function differently.

Wifi is pretty locked down by the FCC there is not much you can change or set. You can try the standard update the driver option but I doubt it will help. It is somewhat strange since end device only have 1 radio chip unlike a router. Most times if there are issues it has issues both on 2.4 and 5. There are no real settings you can make that would cuase this. I would set anything to default just to be sure.

Be very sure no other device is having issues since it would not be your pc then.

With wifi you have almost no options when stuff fails. You end up blindly replacing hardware and hope it fixes it. If you replace the card or use USB mostly depends on how hard it is to take the laptop apart. Some have small doors on the back to get to the wifi card other you have to use a heat gun to soften glue. If yours is simple pretty much any card that fits will work. The device you have is intel and is highly rated so you may want to get a exact replacement. Be aware that card also supports bluetooth so you need get a card that also supports it or you will not have bluetooth support.

 

[Witterings]

Titan ... thanks for that, mcuh appreciated!!

 

[Witterings]

The regularity of the WiFi dropping has massivley increased, if I run Network Troubleshooter I'm getting "The Default Gateway Is Not Available" .... it's resets the device and then it works again.
I've googled and it appears to be a fairly regular fault with Windows 8 to 10 (I'm 8.1) and have tried virtually all of the suggested fixes including updating drives and using set DNS Servers but it makes no difference ad is gettingto teh stage the laptop's becoming unusable due to teh frequency.

If I buy a new network card and install it is it likely to resolve it does anyone know?