Ralink RT3290 adapter issues

[JamezT]

Okay so i recently got a HP Pavilion p7-1447c Desktop PC as an early christmas present and ive had it for two weeks and my only real complaint is my connection to my router is pretty bad. The router is in the other room probably 15 to 20 feet away and im getting a 3 or 2 bar signal to my router. It's also causing my download and upload speed to drop when they are usually supossed to be about a 30 download and 10 upload which is what i get on my other computer, but on this it's like 8 down 3 up and sometimes when im playing a game or something with my friends ill be in a skype call and my connection will just drop randomly or get extremely slow and laggy. I tried updating the driver but that didn't help. I hope someone can help me and thanks for taking your time to read this.

[Cloud_Strider]

Is the other computer also connected wirelessly?

Is it using Windows 8 like the new one?

What brand and model is the router?
Have you checked for a firmware update for the router? I highly recommending updating the firmware in the router if an update is available. In most cases, there is an update to coincide with the release of a new operating system since the launch of Vista. Outdated firmware router with a new OS can certainly make it look like the issue is with the new system since the new OS is affected whereas others are not.

With that said, I highly recommend reducing as much interference as possible. Walls can play a role in reducing the range, so reducing the number of walls in the way can help.

You can also check your wireless router settings. Some wifi cards don't play well with mixed mode (b/g/n for example). You can try setting it to G only for the most compatible settings. If your devices are new enough, you could try the N only settings.

It is possible that the wifi card in it just doesn't have the range to get the performance you want. The only way to remedy this cause would be to replace the wifi card with a new one (either internal or USB).

Before doing anything else, I would say start with checking for a firmware update.

[2111marine]

 I also just purchased a new Envy Dv6z-7200 notebook with the Ralink RT3290 adapter and I am having issues with poor and sometimes non existent wifi.  I am using the Apple Airport Extreme router and as far as I can tell its all up to date.  I was wondering if you were able to fix this issue?

[IncendiaryPyro]

I'm having problems with my g6-2284ca laptop, which came with the RT3290 card, too. Every time I try to download something that's a relatively large file, I'm always disconnected after about 5-10 minutes. TF2 for example, is a 12GB game, and I had to restart the adapter to get it to continue downloading. I even updated the driver, router, and the BIOS, and I'm still having the save problem. The only way to have a usable connection for downloading large files is to plug in an ethernet cord.

I'm considering replacing the card with a different one from a different vendor, but it would be nice if I could fix the issue so I don't have to order one and replace the one I have now.

My laptop is only four days old, also.

[miclipse]

I have a new Pavillion g7 also with the RT3290 adapter. The router is an older Linksys WRT300N router with b/g/n. My other new Win7 Toshiba connects about 14Mbps. When connected with a cable the g7 gets 24Mbps. With WiFI the g7 gets about 0.5 Mbps DL and 3.2 Mbps Upload on speedtest.net with the computer about 3 feet away from the router.  I was on the phone with HP this morning and after trying a few updates nothing helped. So she suggested resetting. It's been doing this now for about three hours and is at 25%. I was told that a "call back" would happen at 2:30pm, it's now 4pm and no call back yet.

I will say that I was able to get through to HP right away at around 11am so I was impressed with that.

[2111marine]

Good luck with that. I did the same thing (resetting) when I called them but it didn't work. I think they did finally call back but it was way later than when they said they would.

[donburi]

Hi, i'm experiencing the exact same problem.

I bought an envy dv6-7204TX which came with the ralink RT3290 which was delivered yesterday. Wifi has been horrible since!! Unreliable speeds even with my router set to auto, was previously working well on 802.11n with all devices. Have tried changing from 40mhz to 20mhz, nothing works. 

I'm using a Asus N15u router upgraded with the latest firmware, works fine with all my devices except this laptop.

Using inSSIDer, my RSSI index hovers around 58-65 range. On my previous laptop with a broadcom card, I was getting a consistant 48-50, mind you my router is only 3 metres away. 

Updated all my drivers and BIOS, nothing seems to work. Speedtest on other laptops showed a consistant 45-40mbps download, on this dv6 my download was a pathetic 2-3mbps. 

Getting frustrated, i googled and found many similar complaints on the RT3290. Network card seems to be the bottleneck here. Any help from HP would be useful 

[mistydake]

I too just purchased the dv6z-7200 running windows 8 preinstalled and am having the same issues with connectivity and slow speeds. My connection is EXTREMELY slow even right next to my router and I have tried uninstalling the device and reinstalling, I have tried different available drivers and when I go to the manufacturers website there is no driver download for windows operating system for this model of wireless card, only for linux....a bit strange I should think. I can't imagine HP would install a hardware device in a Windows laptop that is only supported by linux drivers. 

I have a router running the latest DD-WRT firmware and all of my other wireless devices connect flawlessly. I have tried power cycling the modem and router and have power cycled my laptop after all of these installs and uninstalls numerous times. I've only had this thing for 3 days and have had nothing but problems but I need it for school and do not want to send it back to hp and be without a pc for 3 to 5 weeks after waiting for a month just to get it in the first place. 

I have noticed this is an issue that seems to be very common with this particular wireless card. Are there any viable solutions yet? Can I buy a different wireless card and install it in my laptop without voiding the warranty since HP obviously dropped the ball on it selection of this particular model?

[donburi]

Hi mistydake,

I'm a student as well, and can't afford to have my notebook sent back to HP for now, prolly will do it at the end of this semester since its bothering me. I've tried calling HP, but the CSS in India kept telling me things that i've already done, and already know!! They simply haven't found a solution for this!! And i'm kept wondering if its a hardware or software defect. 

In the meantime, i've found a temporary fix for my case, DO NOT update the driver to the current 5.0.5.0 provided by HP (This slowed my connection to a crawl), and DO NOT install the update provided by Windows Update as well, as you will not be able to connect to any wireless network, i've already tried it. 

What I did was to uninstall and removed all current drivers for this card, and restored it to the default 5.0.3.0 version.After uninstalling, I restarted my computer, and windows 8 automatically installed the default drivers that came pre-loaded with the hardware. While my wifi connection is still halved to about 15mbps from the usual 30-40, at least its beats having 2-3mbps after i've updated my drivers to the latest version.

As of today, i'm still waiting for that **bleep** fix from HP or Ralink! 

Caveat lector- What works for me, might not work for you. Be sure to have workable version of the drivers in your computer before attempting to uninstall your current drivers. If all else fails you can still attempt to go online via the following means,

Bluetooth via your smartphone's hotspot, or have an ethernet cable ready. 

[Exxar]

I was wondering if this issue has been resolved yet?

I too have a Ralink RT3290 wifi+bluetooth card in my 4340S Probook that gives me issues. The wifi isn't too bad, but wifi and audio via bluetooth together simply doesn't work. The audio drops out half the time, or suddenly it speeds up.

Great idea of Ralink to put it all in one card and using the same antenna.