New network adapter?

[jiwawa]

Hi, I'm new on here and hoping you can help me with a network adapter problem.

I've an Acer Aspire V3-371-380A which has had wireless connectivity problems for a long time. This afternoon I was online for about 15mins out of about 4hrs - it's driving me nuts.

The network adapter is a Qualcomm Atheros AR5BWB222. Investigation on the net indicates it's pretty useless.

Trying to update the driver I get the message that it's already the most up-to-date. The card has 2 drivers - one a Qualcomm, and 1 a MS file - is that normal?

When I look on the Acer website I see driver files which bear no relation (in name) to what's on my machine. The Qualcomm driver on my machine is athw8x.sys, version 3.0.2.201, dated 27/02/2016. The MS driver is vwifibus.sys, version 10.0.14393.0. There are 5 drivers on the Acer site with names like NFA344 and NFA344 HAI, all with release dates in 2015.

I saw a recommendation to replace the card with this one.

I haven't delved into the machine yet - are all network adapters the same size physically? Might I have problems fitting it?

It might be the problem is with Win10 rather than the card but I've tried everything else that I've read about.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks.

jiwawa

 

[beers]

Some laptops have a BIOS blacklist about what cards they will support, I don't think Acer does, however.

If you find a similar card type like mini pci-e half height you can stick another, different one in there such as the intel 7260 card or similar.

 

[jiwawa]

Thanks beers. I've had a look at pictures of the 2 cards and they seem to be different in that one has 2 indents at the pins whereas the other has only one.

I discovered that the card had reverted to 'Turn off power to the card to save energy' or whatever it says, tho I had unchecked that at some stage in my investigations. Anyway, it's unchecked again and so far, since I posted my query, I haven't noticed loss of connection

If I have the problem again tho, I'll have a look at the card with a view to replacing. After I've checked about a BIOS blacklist - thanks for the heads up on that.