HP Spectre 360 losing connection to RBK 753S - found a fix
If you have a HP Spectre that keeps disconnecting, read this. I installed RBK 753S 10 days ago. It replaced fios router completely with the RBR 750 plugged directly into ONT. All was great with 30+ devices but my main laptop - HP Spectre 360 13-ac0XX (circa 2019) - kept disconnecting when I moved away from the RBR 750. Each time it would show it was connected to one of my two satellites but would have no internet connection.
After 7 hours of netgear support over multiple days trying to figure out what was going on, I concluded it was only the laptop having problems. Sonos worked, hard wired devices worked, all apple products connected LG and Samsung TVs and more. Netgear support was nice but in the end unhelpful. They did try to change every setting and channel imaginable, though I suspected there were settings in the wifi card that could've helped, but netgear wasn't interested in exploring that. I also tried updating the drivers to my wifi card. I went to Intel's drivers as HP didn't have any updated drivers for the card. No luck either. I was ready to give up and send the system back. I tried one more thing.
THE FIX: It was the wifi card. The originally installed card that worked great forever with my fios routers and every other router I ever came in contact with traveling, couldn't deal with the orbi satellites. My originally installed wifi card was the Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 8265NGW. I replaced it for less than $20 with the Intel 9260NGW, the most recent of the cards Intel installs in the Spectre 360 series. I had to use Intel's drivers, as I can't get any from HP specific to this card for my laptop. You need the non pro version of the card.
Since replacing the card last night, it's been rock solid and I can go anywhere in the house with the laptop. I'd searched everywhere on the internet and come across a few references here and there to HP spectre's losing connection. I hope this helps netgear and anyone else solve this annoying problem.
Re: HP Spectre 360 losing connection to RBK 753S - found a fix
I'm happy the hardware replacement worked for you. Both Wi-Fi adapters are pure 802.11ac 2x2 models, the Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 8265NGW does support up to 80 MHz bandwidth, while the Intel 9260NGW does support up to 160 MHz bandwidth. There is no obvious reason for an issue, nothing that stops both from operating properly, permitting the current driver set is in place.
Re: HP Spectre 360 losing connection to RBK 753S - found a fix
Not sure what driver was on the old intel but many of them did need drivers direct from Intel for a while to work with AX. Their initial drivers didn't work with AX and they weren't pushed out to windows update so many had issues.
Your old card might have still worked if you updated its drivers direct from intel.
Re: HP Spectre 360 losing connection to RBK 753S - found a fix
FWIW, I did update the driver from the HP specific driver that had always worked to the latest intel driver first. Again, the laptop connected to the router, but couldn't switch to the satellites. It seemed easier to try the newer card for $16 than spending many more hours on the phone with netgear tech support. They didn't seem interested in my laptop settings, somewhat understandably. I would love to have known what settings on the original card or updated drivers would have made it work. My original laptop settings were the default settings. Regardless, the connections and speed have been rock solid since I installed the new card.
