Intel 7260AC, driver problem?

[phekno]

I just bought two Intel 7260AC cards and installed them in two completely different laptops. One is an Asus G74Sx, which is about two years old. The install went fine, and everything is working great. The other laptop is an older Acer. I was able to install the card, get connected to the router just fine, and the wireless seemed to be working well, but the laptop's video seemed to be running very slowly. This laptop is running Windows 7 with the Aero theme, and when you click to open or close a window, the window fades in and out. Normally this happens pretty quickly, but now the fade animation takes a second or two. Initially I thought that maybe it's video drivers needed to be updated too (it's an older Intel GMA integrated video card, I believe), so I did that, but that did not solve the problem. I also updated some other drivers and updated some firmware, but that didn't help either. Eventually I re-installed the old card (a Broadcom job, I think), and it seemed to be OK. I uninstalled those drivers, re-installed the card, and it was still acting up. So, anyone run in to a similar issue? I can't imagine why a wi-fi card would be affecting the operation of the on-board video, unless it's an IRQ or DMA problem or something, but I haven't had any trouble with that kind of thing since probably 1994. Any suggestions?

 

[overdrive31]

Try just installing the driver and leave the Intel tool out of the install? Used to have nothing but problems with the Intel Wifi manager. Wonder if it is required for WiDi and such to function. My card will be in the mail today and have a couple laptops to test it in.

 

[phekno]

I did pretty much exactly that, installed the driver only for wi-fi, NOT the whole Intel package (I know better). The Bluetooth part of the card requires you to actually install a separate Intel utility, so I also did that.

 

[sfx2000]

Sounds like an IRQ conflict to be honest... been a while since I've seen something like this..

Check the systems BIOS and see if ACPI is enabled and that your OS install supports this.

 

[KGB7]

Latest drivers arent always the best. Try older drivers for wifi card and Bluetooth. But start with Bluetooth drivers and use drivers that start with 3.0.xxx, instead of the newer driver that is 3.1.xxx.

 

[overdrive31]

No problems with latest Win 7 x64 drivers. Range sure is lacking compared to old 5GHz router, could be the 80MHz channel width maybe.

 

[phekno]

I'll try using some older drivers, but this does feel like it's some kind of DMA or IRQ conflict. That surprises me, though. This machine is kinda old, but not old enough to where ACPI wouldn't have been enabled by default. Plus, it's Win7, so OS support should be a non issue.