HP Envy 15 laptop weak wifi upgrade

[KrisZ]

Just wanted to share this simple upgrade with anyone that has an HP laptop and experiences a weak or intermittent wifi signal. Ours would even completely disconnect while being quite close to the router. It was very erratic. Not all wifi cards will work so you have to do some research. For our Envy 15 model the intel Dual Band wireless AC-7260 works. Make sure to get model 7260HMV that is 867Mbps instead of 300. I got it for around $25 on Amazon. Laptop model in question is 15-q258ca, but this should be good for other envy models too. Now the signal is nice and strong even though the location has not changed The picture is of the new card I got.

 

[stockrex]

I have 2 new hp laptops I bought from costco with the intermittent disconnect issue, The problem is software/firmware related, I got used it. I have the same problem in my lenovo thinkpad, good solution to swap out the wifi card, post a part # if you can, that will help us get the correct item.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Nice upgrade. The internal wifi card in my Lenovo X230 could only support 2.4 GHz spectrum. I swapped it out for an upgraded Intel card that supported 5 GHz as well. Alas, there was some slight incompatibility issue that would cause my audio to glitch/stutter when I was transferring data over wifi. I finally ended up getting an external USB wifi adapter. No more interference with audio, and I get even higher transfer speeds now.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted by stockrex

I have 2 new hp laptops I bought from costco with the intermittent disconnect issue, The problem is software/firmware related, I got used it. I have the same problem in my lenovo thinkpad, good solution to swap out the wifi card, post a part # if you can, that will help us get the correct item.

I highly doubt it's the software. My HP was doing it from the start as well and even after several driver updates. The card was a generic Broadcom wifi card with HP specific part numbers on it. I think it is simply a matter of cheap hardware. Regarding part numbers, I don't see any, that is why I posted a pic of the card. It only shows model number, which is: Intel 7260 HMV.

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete

Nice upgrade. The internal wifi card in my Lenovo X230 could only support 2.4 GHz spectrum. I swapped it out for an upgraded Intel card that supported 5 GHz as well. Alas, there was some slight incompatibility issue that would cause my audio to glitch/stutter when I was transferring data over wifi. I finally ended up getting an external USB wifi adapter. No more interference with audio, and I get even higher transfer speeds now.

Yes, my HP laptop was also 2.4 GHz and it would've been fine if the signal was consistent and strong. This new Intel card also had some issues. It worked normally on the drivers windows initially got. However after I manually undated the drivers, the 5GHz band would not work properly. It would connect, but the status would say "No Internet Connection". I then downloaded the latest driver from Intel, just to make sure and the same thing happened. I had to uninstall the drivers and force windows to install the old ones it did when I first installed the card. The card works fine now on the drivers from 2015, go figure LOL.