ar9485 wireless issues

[Laplandz]

Hi all, i'm having some major issues with the Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 wireless card on mostly Asus machines (x553m x550ea currently in workshop) and Windows 10 20H2 and am hoping folk here can help....

The issue is the wireless will drop off after 5-30 minutes of booting up, rebooting the machine brings it back for the same time duration. when it disconnects and i try to rejoin it says "unable to connect to this network" unless i reboot.
My own research shows this has been an issue going back to 2015 and some things i've tried so far....

dont let windows turn off the power to device via device manager
power options all set to max performance including custom option for wireless adapter
drivers, so many drivers! tried all available versions found at www.ath-drivers.eu.
Tried drivers from the manufacturers website, including the 'airplane' switch/drivers supplied by them just in case.
updated BIOS with no joy.

So far my quick fix is to just simply replace the card, however we're getting low on wifi cards from breakers and would rather not buy from eBay if i can help it.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Lee

 

[seashore]

would rather not buy from eBay if i can help it.

IMHO, as they're only ~£3 each on eBay I'd buy a few and not waste time battling driver issues on the existing one.

 

[Laplandz]

IMHO, as they're only ~£3 each on eBay I'd buy a few and not waste time battling driver issues on the existing one.

yeah i kinda agree, it's mostly a frustration, for example the Asus x553m is accessed via the palmrest and the wireless card is located under the mainboard meaning removing everything to get at it. Granted the strip, replace and rebuild only takes 20-25mins or so but it's just annoying. Plus i get customers stating the problem wasn't there before and why am i charging them £10-£15 extra for the card. This seems to be happening with fresh installs on SSD's, although i don't think this is relevant\related, except maybe for Windows updated or something. I've so far showed them a Microsoft support post to give "evidence" it's not me trying to make a little extra cash.

If no-one else contributes i reckon i'll just have to remember to tell customers when booking in that it may be an issue :'(

 

[glennd]

only takes 20-25mins or so

I suspect you've already spent longer than that trying to talk yourself out of it.

 

[NJW]

Granted the strip, replace and rebuild only takes 20-25mins or so but it's just annoying.

It's the prospect of having to do it, rather than the actual doing. As for cost, it's hardly a bankruptcy case if you did it for no billed time. (How many do you actually have to replace?) Or put a couple of quid on your quoted price for SSD upgrades as a contingency.

Think of all those jobs that looked like they would be a pain, but turned out to be profitably straightforward. This is just nature's payback.

 

[Laplandz]

It's the prospect of having to do it, rather than the actual doing. As for cost, it's hardly a bankruptcy case if you did it for no billed time. (How many do you actually have to replace?) Or put a couple of quid on your quoted price for SSD upgrades as a contingency.

Think of all those jobs that looked like they would be a pain, but turned out to be profitably straightforward. This is just nature's payback.

we've done 12 since new year and i agree it's just an annoyance rather then time/cost, personally, this is more about solving the puzzle and i feel like i've been "beat" as i can't get it to work!
I posted here in case someone else had overcome it but i think i'll just bite the bullet and find other puzzles to solve

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I learned a long time ago, Atheros wireless NICs...run...run away...smash with a hammer, hit it with a flamethrower, do anything but try to fix it.
Had a client back then I took on, rather large client, fleet of laptops...a good number of which had Atheros wireless. This was back in the XP days. Their fleet of other laptops with Intel wireless...no problems. Even Realsuk..no problems. Through the years after that, I just noticed...laptops with wireless issues, wasn't surprised to find the wireless NIC was Atheros.

I did all the usual "best practices"....update drivers, Microsoft updates of course, BIOS, windows power management on it, and other more granular things.

So yeah, I just..."oh, Atheros....yeah, we can disable that and put in a little USB NIC for now...and then plan on replacing those laptop(s) with ones that have good Intel wireless NICs"