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

Yesterday, I received my new Surface 3 with Windows 10 preinstalled expecting to enjoy my new device. Sadly, that's not the case as I'm seriously considering returning it. The WiFi issues is ridiculously annoying & I'm again surprised by the lack of action by Microsoft. I have multiple Windows devices, a pitiful Surface RT & few Windows Phones. My faith in Microsoft is shrinking by every experience, and I have changed from a Windows fan that has the whole eco system, to my first iPhone few months ago. Still I thought no iPad, let give Surface another try after the disaster of RT.

The last 24 hours, I've called with Microsoft store support, where I got my new Surface, had chats with answer techs and read almost every article out there. It is really sad to conclude that the issues are still there for such a long while.

On my brand new Surface 3 with Win 10 Home pre-installed, my WiFi connection on 5 GHz sucks, on AC & N, but works just fine with 2.4 GHz. It's not necessary to repeat the whole 10 pages here, but I conclude that it is a driver issue, thus Microsoft's fault. That's based on the fact that my router functions perfectly with my VAIO with Win 10 and at least 4 other devices on 5 GHz, including my sad Surface RT. My D-Link 868L is a great router, but Microsoft is not living up to the standards of a corporation of such position providing faulty software and failing to fix them in a reasonable period. I get on newest (forced on me) driver an average of 0.8 download instead of the possible 120 Mbps.

The most important fact is that no settings changed with just rolling back the driver to a previous version of the WiFi adapter, everything works again and get my speed of 120/12 on 5 GHz. The driver I rolled back to is posted on Softpedia and found it on this Reddit forum article (one of many on any site), but the faulty Firmware of 23 July 2015 get installing after few hours revoking the fix, as I'm using Win 10 Home, I cannot defer the update.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3fv8l4/very\_slow\_5ghz\_wifi\_speed\_on\_surface\_3/

As here being discussed for a while, I wonder why won't Microsoft just issue a fix and roll us back to the pervious WiFi driver version # 15.68.3073.151 that works perfectly.

I only rolled back the driver of the WiFi and all works fine till the update kicks in again, after a restart.

So many disappointments and all I can think of is no waiting any more for a fix, I'll probably send it back, as I regret buying a Windows Phone 7, HTC 8X & Surface RT already, I hope I won't regret getting the Lumia 930, as I already regret my one day old Surface 3.

Kind Regards

• Turning off location services has been reported to help.
• Uninstalling Marvell Wireless adapter has helped.
• Customers have reported that disabling Bluetooth has helped.
• Restarting Surface has a temporary, positive effect.
• Improvement if connecting only to 2.4Ghz on your router, or select 2.4Ghz only from the band chooser on Surface.

In my case, turning off location services, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, disabling Bluetooth, or restarting the Surface did not have an effect on the slowdowns I have been experiencing.

Performance improves on the 2.4 GHz band, but it is still not near where it should be. For example, from 8 Mbps on 5 GHz to 30 Mbps on 2.4 GHz when the speed should be around 150 Mbps.

One thing not mentioned in the list is changing the channel width for the 5 GHz band to 20 MHz. This workaround got me up to around 90 Mbps, but left other devices on the network running slower than desired, since most are not 802.11ac.

The current workaround that I've used for a couple of weeks so far is reverting to the Wi-Fi driver in the January 2015 driver update. I get the speeds I expect and everything is stable. I've had no other major issues and I've been happy with my Surface Pro 3 since then.

I've seen another similarly configured Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10 Pro work just fine with my router with the same version of the driver that caused me problems, so it is not enough to say it is just a driver issue or an issue with Windows 10. There has to be something more to the problem like a different hardware revision, etc. There are also multiple symptoms that not everyone shares like erratic latency or dropped connections. I've had neither of those problems, just the reduced bandwidth.

I've mentioned it before, but I have an ASUS RT-AC68U router running the latest non-beta firmware from ASUS. I've already backed up and passed along firmware settings to Barb, who has passed them along to her contact at Microsoft. I would also like to thank Barb for her efforts in helping to get this problem resolved.