Surface Pro 3 Slow WiFi - 72Mbps Max (driver)

Anonymous
2014-06-21T05:48:07+00:00

I have an Apple Airport Extreme 802.11ac wireless router at home and am only connecting at a max of speed of 72Mbps (usually closer to 11Mbps if I'm more than 20 feet away from the WAP). I have two other 802.11ac laptops at home (Samsung AB9+ and rMBP) and my two other computers are connecting up at 800Mbps+ and pulling down the same on Internet speed tests; yes, I have real GigE connectivity. Is anyone else having these problems?

Surface | Surface Pro | Network

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-08-19T11:27:04+00:00

    Rolling back the driver does not work, the problem is more complex.  Read back on the thread, I know it is a lot of pages but there are a few things that seem to work for people depending how far you want to go and what your exact problem is since for everyone it seems the symptoms are different.  A few things help though:

    • Put your router's 5 Ghz band channel in the upper range like 36, that made the AC connection a lot more stable for me.  Of course I only did this for testing since other devices work just fine in Auto.
    • Disable the WiFi card from working while in sleep mode via the registry.  Again, I did not try this.
    • The route I took which is I bought a nano USB Wi-Fi 'N' adapter and disabled the onboard WiFi card, for me this solved all my Wi-Fi woes and I forgot this was an issue anymore.

    Microsoft's August patch created a lot more headaches, not just for the SP3 but even other PCs where the BSOD is appearing everywhere so I would not be surprised we get other patches soon.  They stated that in September they may release a patch for the SP3 Wi-Fi problems we have experiencing since launch.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-08-20T21:02:01+00:00

    So I got my sp3 yesterday and it was blazing fast on wifi. I did all the new updates and after doing so every web page was loading slow or timing out.

    I did some searching and there a bunch of people with the exact same problem "Other forum"

    I cant use my 5ghz network which is my wireless ac. I have a netgear nighthawk and the only way i can use this sp3 is by using the 2.6ghz now.

    Please fix this. I'm shaking my head that first update screwed something up.... i already went through nightmares with my sp2 so this isnt a good start :( 

    My Nighthawk is the same w.my SP3. It just drops after a minute or so. Done all the firmware updates and looked for other drivers but nothing. This needs to be sorted ASAP by MS.

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  3. Barb Bowman 80,805 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-08-20T21:15:17+00:00

    On Wed, 20 Aug 2014 21:02:01 +0000, Adam C. Horne wrote:

    >>My Nighthawk is the same w.my SP3. It just drops after a minute or so. Done all the firmware updates and looked for other drivers but nothing. This needs to be sorted ASAP by MS.

    A few things..

    First, please make sure your r7000 has the latest firmware

    http://support.netgear.com/product/r7000#wrapper Firmware Version 1.0.3.68

    Second, please see

    http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/08/11/some-theories-on-wifi-issues-with-surface-pro-3/

    and

    http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/08/15/surface-pro-3-and-apple-airport-low-speed-fix/

    Third, please make sure you have installed all the available updates.

    I've been rock solid here on the r7000 for a long time. I had been testing the

    latest firmware for Netgear for about a month prior to its release.

    __________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Barb

    Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

    My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

    Please mark as answered if this answers your question

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-08-21T01:01:01+00:00

    On Wed, 20 Aug 2014 21:02:01 +0000, Adam C. Horne wrote:

    >>My Nighthawk is the same w.my SP3. It just drops after a minute or so. Done all the firmware updates and looked for other drivers but nothing. This needs to be sorted ASAP by MS.

    A few things..

    First, please make sure your r7000 has the latest firmware

    http://support.netgear.com/product/r7000#wrapper Firmware Version 1.0.3.68

    Second, please see

    http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/08/11/some-theories-on-wifi-issues-with-surface-pro-3/

    and

    http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/08/15/surface-pro-3-and-apple-airport-low-speed-fix/

    Third, please make sure you have installed all the available updates.

    I've been rock solid here on the r7000 for a long time. I had been testing the

    latest firmware for Netgear for about a month prior to its release.

    __________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Barb

    Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

    My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

    Please mark as answered if this answers your question

    latest firmware on the router...no channels set to auto....all updates for the Surface Pro 3. Works fine on 5Ghz when on battery. When I plug in, it starts with the limited connectivity. I can live with the random removing of my network adapter in device manager on waking up. Hyper-V never enabled and currently disabled. No powercfg scripts run. Reset all power profiles and using default balance profile. I even disabled the 2.4Ghz wireless on my router for now (only for friends anyways as all my devices are AC or wired). Anyone got links to the older firmware updates and marvell drivers specifically as they are no longer listed on the MS site but for the august update which is causing me some battery drain issues as well

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  5. Barb Bowman 80,805 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-08-21T11:27:27+00:00

    On Thu, 21 Aug 2014 01:01:01 +0000, Adam C. Horne wrote:

    >>latest firmware on the router...no channels set to auto....all updates for the Surface Pro 3. Works fine on 5Ghz when on battery. When I plug in, it starts with the limited connectivity. I can live with the random removing of my network adapter in device manager on waking up. Hyper-V never enabled and currently disabled. No powercfg scripts run. Reset all power profiles and using default balance profile. I even disabled the 2.4Ghz wireless on my router for now (only for friends anyways as all my devices are AC or wired). Anyone got links to the older firmware updates and marvell drivers specifically as they are no longer listed on the MS site but for the august update which is causing me some battery drain issues as well

    What channel is the 5GHz on? Can you try the highest channel?

    If that doesn't work ----

    My gut feeling is that you should try to exchange your SP3. I'm sure that

    official support is going to tell you to do a complete reset, which means

    re-installing all your non Windows Store programs and if you have to do that, it

    might as well be on a replacement unit.

    __________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Barb

    Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

    My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

    Please mark as answered if this answers your question

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