Surface Pro 3 - Windows 10 - WiFi (slow or limited connectivity )

Anonymous
2015-07-30T14:16:39+00:00

Have a Surface Pro 3 that worked fine till I updated to Win10.  Now the wireless connection seems to randomly go to a "limited connectivity" mode.  Fortunately was purchased from Costco a coupe of weeks ago so it is going back there if we can't get this figured out by Sunday.

The Surface Pro3 is a flagship device - why in the world would you subject your customers to have to resort to looking for help in forums like this?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2015-11-13T10:20:54+00:00

Everyone,

Build 10586 - the November Windows 10 update - was released yesterday, and it contains a newer Marvell wireless driver 15.68.9032.47 - people are reporting that this greatly improves wireless connectivity. Please download the large update, and if you used the registry hack, reverse it as follows:

Press Windows button. Search for regedit. Open it

  1. Navigate to the following path:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\mrvlpcie8897

  1. Find the item labeled “TXAMSDU”. Double tap and modify the value from 0 to 1
  2. Restart the machine

Then test your connectivity, and post results.

Was this answer helpful?

40+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2015-11-13T10:44:26+00:00

Fred,

the November Windows 10 update to build 10586 has new wireless drivers. Can you download and install the update (it should be offered via WU) and let us know if this changes your connectivity?

Was this answer helpful?

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2015-08-05T18:12:39+00:00

Penny,

These kinds of issues WERE present on 8.1 for months but they mostly all cleared after several driver updates.

And that particular router is not one known to exhibit slow wifi. I'm suggesting you trade it because it is SP new and you can now get one with 10 pre-installed and not have to go through an upgrade AND because you have this issue. Getting it swapped will rule out a hardware issue and would be a step forward.

This is what *I* would do if in this situation.

For what it's worth - Microsoft needs to fix the driver and any underlying Win 10 OS issues. It took them 9 months to get a "good" Windows 8.1 wireless driver. For now, consider an external USB wireless adapter. I carry around a http://www.amazon.com/Edimax-EW-7811UTC-Dual-Band-Connectivity-Exceeding/dp/B00FW6T36Y

Was this answer helpful?

0 comments

417 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-09-21T05:03:05+00:00

    That I have to stick a dongle out of the one USB port to make it work is ridiculous.

    Does that mean you can't even use it in a USB hub?  

    I'd still like to see someone figure out how to use  netsh wlan reportissues.  <eg>

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-09-21T02:03:49+00:00

    Well it's just a theory;-)

    But AC do run on 5G, you may need to disable AC (using N on 5G instead) to prove it's AC and not 5G.  And even if N on 5G works, there is no guarantee that AC on 5G would also work.

    The quickest way to ensure this is not the problem, though, is to check what channels are available on 5G on your AP.  You should be able to login to your AP and change the setting. If you are seeing proper US channels as listed in the link below -

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_WLAN\_channels

    Then your AP is most likely up to date. From there you can try to use a fixed channel (instead of Auto) and see if things improve.  It's recommended that you use different SSID for 2.4G and 5G for easy troubleshooting.

    Not sure which APs you bought, but I won't be surprised if the firmwares are not updated enough to cooper with latest changes.  The reason your other workaround works can just be that both the your USB stick and AP are on the same (old) implementation (which ironically works). If you have no preference, I would recommend later models from Asus and Netgear, they do update firmware frequently.

    BTW you should be able to run N on 2.4G, in practice you probably don't lose too much speed.

    Additionally I have the ask the obvious - did you get your Surface locally - Is that an US SKU?  It's already a known issue (another great pain) that Surface will (now?) stick to the Wifi Channel where the SKU is supposed to be sold.  As far as I can tell, this issue has not been fixed.

    I don't work for Microsoft, just try to help;-)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments