My solution to Nitro series WiFi problem

satikas
satikas Member Posts: 3 New User

I have a 17in Nitro version that came with the problematic Atheros W222 (wifi signal strenght really poor and internet speeds low. A lot of connection drops).

 

I tossed the W222 and bought from ebay:

 

Atheros Sparklan WNFQ-255ACN(BT) M.2/NGFF 802.11AC 867mbps Wlan+Bluetooth 4.1

Card

 

 

I also bought from eBay new antennas for that card because I tossed the Acer ones which were IMO badly installed:

 

MHF4 Laptop/Embedded Dualband Antenna for WIFI WLAN Bluetooth NGFF/M.2 Module

Antennas

 

 

After many hours of testing I found out that Acers installment of wifi antennas did not give me good results and problem presisted with the new card, even tho internet worked alot better: drops were rare but speeds were low.

 

The best speeds and signal strenght I got with the following placement for the antennas (picture of the actual computer):

installment.jpg

 

So buying new wifi card and 2 antennas for it solved the problem for me. Blazing fast internet now with zero drops Smiley Happy

Total cost was around 75 euros. And this procedure will avoid your warranty. I did not care about it, thats why I did it.

I also did some research and found out that newer models come with Atheros QCA61x4 which is actually the same card linked in this thread. After Googling some threads about wifi issues with QCA61x4 still appeared. So it must be the card and the placement of antennas (maybe software details aswell) that cause the wifi problems to people.

 

So to sum up: if your Acer is experiencing WiFi connectivity issues, I recommend all kinds of software hacks first. They can all be found via simple Google search. I remember techniques like deleting card from dev manager and letting it reappear. Some also claimed that disabling bluetooth or playing around with bands and other values in dev manager cards properties gave good results. And if none of the software solutions work for you, go with the hardware. For this card be sure to upgrade driver that is installed automagically upon bootup, by going to dev manager and manually updating device driver from there. It will find a new version which as of now is v12.0.0.128 with a release date 30.07.2015.

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