I have a Dell desktop PC with a built in wifi card (an Intel AC 7260) that constantly drops its connection to my router. I have found that there are quite a few people with the same issue. I have downloaded the latest drivers from Intel and tried other settings suggested on the internet but the issue remains.

I am considering the purchase of a wifi plugin to resolve the problem. My question is will the built in card interfere with the plugin or vice-versa? If there is a problem with interference is there a way to disable the built in card?

Thanks for your help.

They should not interfere but you can disable the built in Wi-Fi in Device Manager if you wish.

In my experience it is more often the router dropping the Wi-Fi than the adapter. Regardless, an adapter can also drop...

Before you spend money I'd like to see you try the following.

Go to Device Manager and double click on your wireless adapter; this will bring up the device properties. If you see a Power Management tab click on it. If checked to allow the computer to turn off the device to save power uncheck the box. Click OK. A system restart would not hurt.

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Thanks for your reply Jay.

I didn't mention that there are three PCs using the same router. Only the one has the drop connection problem, so I assume it is the system that isn't working correctly. I took your advice and went into the device manager and turned off the save power check box. I'll wait and see what happens.

One other question. If I disable the wifi card using device manager will it re-activate when the system reboots. I assume it won't but I'm just checking.

Anyway, thank you very much for your assistance. As always, I get my problems solved when i came here.

Thank you for the compliment on getting your issues solved here. LOL! Spread the word to your friends.

If you disable a device in Device Manager it will stay disabled unless you go back and select to enable so, yes, disabling will survive a restart. Really doing this is probably not needed but why use system resources on a device that isn't being used?

Let us know the results on unchecking the power option box.

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