Intel 8260 IEEE 802.11ac - Wi-Fi Adapter

Relief, reliable wifi on my Dell XPS 13 9350. The stock Dell 1820A Broadcom wifi card in this otherwise wonderful device was a pain as it would always disconnect when awakening from sleep, the range was quite short either on 2.4 or 5 GHz, balky Bluetooth which would slow wifi to a crawl, etc. After seeing reports of good reception and performance with this unit and seeing they are installed on the Ubuntu versions of the XPS 13 I installed it. The new card works like a charm, just had to do a few things to get it up and running but now now problems and over 125 M downloads. Very happy with this vendor and product. For those making the transition here's a few tips:1. Before you do anything - go to the Intel site and download the wifi and Bluetooth driver packages so you'll have something to get the card installed when you start up.2. Go into Programs and uninstall the Broadcom WIDCOMM application, the Bluetooth application and anything else named Broadcom.3. Go into device manager and turn off Bluetooth and uninstall the wifi driver.4. Reboot and check that the wifi card has a triangle next to it in device manager.5. Crack open the XPS 13 (there is a Phillips screw under the magnetic plate on back) using a Torx T5.6. Unscrew the plate at the top of the wifi card and remove the two antenna wires carefully with tweezers.7. Remove and replace the new Intel card. Attach the antenna wires (they just push on) matching the black and white symbols.8. Reattach the plate and screw to secure the wifi card and close up the case.9. Boot up - Win 10 will recognize the wifi card immediately and install the driver.10. Open up the updated Intel drivers and install wifi followed by Bluetooth.11. Reboot and reconnect to wifi and Bluetooth. You're good to go.Test the device through a few sleep cycles and reboots and all should be good. Truly painless.

I got the 8260 to replace the 3160 in my Dell Inspiron 15 5995 laptop. This 8260 is M.2 2230 came in pink bubble wrap instead of the normal little brown box and anti static plastic seal. Sometimes the connect speed show up above 800Mbps but wont stay locked on compared to 3160 which stays locked on above 400Mbps. Signal strength on the 8260 was less when behind walls compared to the 3160 only by less than 10%. Only difficulty I had was putting the wires back on. Overall, I'm satisfied with the purchase. I purchased a second 8260 to replace the 3160 for the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 but waiting for Dell to ship it to me. I'll post how it works out once I get it.Updated: Works fine in the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 and same connection issues above due to frequency limitations on all devices. Also could not find any documentation on Bluetooth 4.2 if this supports "aptx"? Like the AZIO and Creative bluetooth adapters(Creative only works with other Creative devices) both support aptx.

When I bought my laptop a little over a year ago, I opted to immediately take advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade that was offered. The one major issue I experienced with Win10 was with the Wi-Fi: the network I have at home & the networks at friends'/relatives' homes I frequently visit don't broadcast the SSID. So after manually entering my home network info and connecting fine, if I took the laptop to my mother's I would, of course, have to manually enter her network credentials to connect. But then after getting home the laptop wouldn't find my home network; in the end I would have to delete the "known" credentials and re-enter in order to connect. I had to do this EVERY TIME I connected my laptop's Wi-Fi to a different network. I figured it was a Windows 10 issue, based on some blogs I'd found & read, and just suffered with it & waiting for a fix.So a year later I encountered something that helped me to realize this is NOT a Win10 issue but appeared more likely to be a hardware problem. I tried changing the drivers for the wireless card - even skipped the Dell-released driver and tried the Broadcom drivers for the card model number - to no avail.The Intel 8260 had high reviews, and at its low price I figured it was worth a try. In short: I no longer have the "connect to non-broadcast network" issue! I've noticed that the range is much better, as network speed is hardly impacted when I'm furthest away from my router. But most importantly: I can take my laptop to a friend's place and it'll connect to the network immediately - then when I get home and boot up it finds my network and connects right away. No more having to manually type in network info every time. It's a relief after having dealt with this problem for as long as I did.So a word to folks who own some of the recent Dell XPS laptop models (circa 2014 & later): if you're experiencing issues like what I described above, just know that it's most likely the poor wireless card Dell is using: replacing it is probably your best move. Do your research and make sure that the laptop model you have can suit this card first. Google is your friend here: you'll find tons of posts that list part numbers/brands that will fit your laptop, as well as instructions for proper installation (both the physical aspect of removing panels to get inside your laptop AND proper instructions for uninstalling drivers/software before removing parts to be replaced). One thing Dell has continued to do well over the years is make assembly of their PCs/laptops pretty simple, so it's usually a quick process to open up/remove panels to get inside your Dell computer to replace parts.

Used this as a replacement for XPS13 9343 wifi card. It was simple to install and worked well for awhile. Then, it started having the same intermittent connection issues as my original card, randomly dropping my connection several times a day, especially during conference calls. ComegaCity, the seller, refused to help. Disappointed, do not buy.