Help needed - Laptop Wi-Fi slows down network internet

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eitai2001

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Hi Guys.

I purchased a Lenovo u430 Touch when I was in the States.
I'm now having a weird problem with it.

Whenever I connect it to my network via Wi-Fi, the entire network slows down ... the ping time becomes 2000ms+ to the internet. Even to my router - from any computer on the network. As soon as I disconnect the laptop, the rest of the computers access the internet fine again.

However, if I connect the laptop with direct cable, there is no problem. So that tells me it is unlikely to be a virus or malware. It's definitely not a distance issue. I've updated to the latest drivers. Some sites recommended deleting the intel wireless software which I did. The card is an intel Wireless-N 7260 with Bluetooth.

I've made sure there are no manually entered DNS addresses on the wireless card ... I'm literally all out of ideas short of selling the laptop and getting a new one.

I'll try any ideas you have besides formatting at this stage.

Thanks

Regards

Itai
 
US WiFi-capable hardware appears to work best on certain channels and this was my experience when setting up Kindles on a homeowner's network using their Wi-Fi. I've seen this behaviour from US-bought Macbooks as well. Channels 6 and 10 appear to be the most compatible, so give that a try on your router.

I don't know the layout of the card's drivers, but you can look into disabling the 5.0GHz band on the card and sticking with 2.4GHz 802.11n (you should be able to do this in the device's properties page, which you can access in Network and Sharing center). If the signal is good enough, you can also try dropping the card to 802.11g mode and have the router set to accept any 802.11 clients using b/g/n modes.

As a last resort, try using a different wireless card. The N7260 is a mini-PCI-E card and there are a lot of options out there for a replacement. If you have any laptops with mPCI-E wireless NICs in them you could swap that over and see how things go.
 
NAG - Wesley said:
US WiFi-capable hardware appears to work best on certain channels and this was my experience when setting up Kindles on a homeowner's network using their Wi-Fi. I've seen this behaviour from US-bought Macbooks as well. Channels 6 and 10 appear to be the most compatible, so give that a try on your router.

I don't know the layout of the card's drivers, but you can look into disabling the 5.0GHz band on the card and sticking with 2.4GHz 802.11n (you should be able to do this in the device's properties page, which you can access in Network and Sharing center). If the signal is good enough, you can also try dropping the card to 802.11g mode and have the router set to accept any 802.11 clients using b/g/n modes.

As a last resort, try using a different wireless card. The N7260 is a mini-PCI-E card and there are a lot of options out there for a replacement. If you have any laptops with mPCI-E wireless NICs in them you could swap that over and see how things go.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I'll give a shot at forcing my router to use channel 6 or channel 10. I don't have a 5Ghz option on my card, so that's out. I am using a spare laptop for now, so may just try the swapping of the wifi cards. They both have bluetooth, so it may just work.

Thanks.
 
Question: How WiFi device is getting current country location to setup WiFi channels? Channels are not preset to US permanently isn't? I thought it takes from operating system location or wireless utility settings and changes channels accordingly.

[EDIT] It comes default US when shipped to US. Location parameter should be changed to South Africa. It is in properties of wireless adapter.

Disable Bluetooth for testing, it can be setup to transmit over WiFi.
 
Last edited:
sajunky said:
Question: How WiFi device is getting current country location to setup WiFi channels? Channels are not preset to US permanently isn't? I thought it takes from operating system location or wireless utility settings and changes channels accordingly.

[EDIT] It comes default US when shipped to US. Location parameter should be changed to South Africa. It is in properties of wireless adapter.

Disable Bluetooth for testing, it can be setup to transmit over WiFi.
Click to expand...

Can you please attach a screenshot of where you see the location parameter for WiFi card? I looked through the driver properties and can't find it. Thanks.

P.s. I tried forcing the channel to 6 or 10 and it sadly makes no difference.
 
eitai2001 said:
Can you please attach a screenshot of where you see the location parameter for WiFi card? I looked through the driver properties and can't find it. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Here it is. In your case it can be in wireless utility, not Windows wireless adapter properties.
 

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Hmmm, rolling back the driver to it's original unupdated version seems to have helped for now ... let's hope it stays this way!
 
Is any wireless utility supplied with your notebook? As it is Intel, Intel supply such utility. Change location in Bluetooth and WiFi section, but in combo adapter it can be single option for both.
 
It is called: Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software connection utility.

Edit: With Intel cards there is no such settings. They work according to the hardware SKU tag. It means that SKU=MOV1 (for US) will not actively scan channels above 11, but in infrastructure mode it will connect to existing network operating on these channels. Sorry for distracting with country settings.

It appears to be a common problem with N-7260 drivers. https://communities.intel.com/thread/47983
 
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