S3-951: terrible Wi-Fi connection after Windows 7 installation

Hello,

On Monday of this week I got myself a brand new SSD which I used to replace the HDD in my Acer Aspire S3 (long out of warranty, unfortunately). Consequently, I had to install Windows 7 anew and download all the drivers from Acer's website. However, whereas before I would get full-strength wireless connection, now I only get one bar and if I move slightly across the house, the connection would get lost and even report no networks in sight.

Could anyone help me find a solution to this problem? I don't have access to my recovery partition anymore, or else I would have simply used it to restore to the defaults when the wireless adapter worked flawlessly.

Thank you in advance!

Accepted answers

philetus

There is a possibility one of the antenna wires came off the wifi card.You can access it by removing the 12 screws holding the bottom on and gently lift off the back.If it sticks use a guitar pick or a plastic card to gently pry it apart.Be aware of static elect. damage.Look it up.

All comments

philetus

If your wifi card is a Atheros Atheroas AR5BWB222, the win7-10.0.0.285-whql was the driver that worked for me on my wife's V5. It possibly will work for you. You can get it at:

https://www.atheros.cz/atheros-wireless-download.php?chipset=73&system=6

It is the third driver down.

zkvvoob

philetus, thank you for the suggestion.

I tried your diver, I tried the newer version available on that website, as well as the Atheros driver on Acer's download page. And nothing seems to solve the problem.

RIght now I'm sitting less than 3m from the router, being the only device connected to it, and I still can't get more than a single bar. What's more, the connection keeps dropping constantly, takes forever to reconnect and the speed is horrendous.

I keep thinking that Acer's stock installation either has a different driver or some additional settings/drivers/apps. Unfortunately, I don't have the recovery partition anymore. Is there a way to get access to it? Could someone who runs factory Windows installation give me the driver and possible settings?

Thank you all!

philetus

There is a possibility one of the antenna wires came off the wifi card.You can access it by removing the 12 screws holding the bottom on and gently lift off the back.If it sticks use a guitar pick or a plastic card to gently pry it apart.Be aware of static elect. damage.Look it up.