[Solved] HP Elitebook 850 G2 with Wifi dropouts (win 10, Intel 7265)

[JMFV80]

Hi,

My Elitebook 850 G2 had frequent wifi dropouts, disconnecting and reconnecting for no apparent reason every 2/3 minutes. OS is Windows 10 Professional and wifi card is Intel AC 7265. 

I found the solution for my case and would like to share it with the community in this post, because several people describe the same symptom and the solution below may help. Even if it doesn't,  I'm listing other possible solutions, that I've tried and may work for others. 

Solution A: Disable automatic proxy in Windows

Note: Try this even if you're not using proxy's (like I wasn't!). It worked for me. 

Steps:

Click Win+R to open run window.

Type inetcpl.cpl (Enter)

Select tab "Connections"

Select "Lan Settings"

Untick "Automatically Detect Settings"

Click Ok twice.

If the solution above doesn't work for you, then it may be a netword card issue. The solutions below address this case. Easy ways to check if wifi network card is the root cause are

1) Use an ethernet cable instead. If it works, then something is wrong in the wifi - try the solutions below;

2) Trying a Wifi dongle. These are usually cheap. If the dongle works ok, then wifi card is likely to be the problem - try the solutions below. In my case, the internet kept dropping with the dongle, so I knew it wasn't the wifi card fault;

3) Connecting the PC to another wifi network. For example, go to a friend's place to try this. If the problem persists, then you know that it isn't an incompatibility between your card and the router. Otherwise, try the solutions below.

In case Solution A didn't work, find below solutions that were reported to work by some people. I've sorted them not by effectiveness, but from the least to the most compromising, namely D and E/F/G imply loss of performance or to buy hardware.

Solution B: Update the wifi drive to the latest version from Intel

Steps: Downloaded and install the driver at Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/83635/Intel-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC-7265.

HP has also a support page for each laptop, but the drivers listed may not be the latest.

Solution C: Disable power polling

Steps: See Solution 2 in http://www.troublefixers.org/laptops/fix-intel-wireless-7260-ac-wifi-speed-issues-in-windows-10/679/

I could copy paste the text here, but it seems fair to credit the source.

Solution D : Set conservative wifi setting for Intel wifi card

Note: This one seems to work fairly well, but comes at the cost of wifi performance.

Steps: See Solution 1 in http://www.troublefixers.org/laptops/fix-intel-wireless-7260-ac-wifi-speed-issues-in-windows-10/679/

As in Solution C, I could copy paste the text here, but it seems fair to credit the source.

Solutions E/F/G: Use Wifi Dongle/different router/ethernet connection to workaround the issue.

Note: Worth considering if you're getting desperate. Wifi Dongle is cheap and easy solution.

Hope this helps and saves time to some people.