Reliable plug-and-play Mini PCIE WiFi card for laptops?

Hi all - I own 2 older Acer laptops with Broadcom WiFi cards that all have issues with WiFi randomly disconnecting, or NOT automatically reconnecting upon wake-from-sleep or on boot. I've seen several family member's laptops with the same issue...also with older Broadcom cards.

The only way to fix the random disconnections when they happen is by running the WiFi troubleshooter, disabling and re-enabling the WiFi adapter, or sometimes restarting the whole machine. I've tried every single driver I can find, and tried various suggestions for settings changes (turning off 'allow Windows to turn this device off to save power', for example) and they all still do this. They are all older laptops (Win7 or Win8-era) that have been upgraded to Win10.

So....to work around this as it's driving me crazy, are there any suggestions for a good plug-and-play Mini PCIE WiFi card I could put into those laptops that isn't going to break the bank? Hopefully replacing the card with one with a completely different chipset would do the trick?

Any decent Realtek/Ralink/Intel/Atheros Mini PCIE cards out there that could solve the issue? Thanks for any suggestions! :)

you could try a usb wifi adapter. usb wifi adapter amazon - Google Shopping

I could, but I'd rather get an internal card as these laptops all only have 3 USB ports and one plug on each of them us being used by a wireless mouse, so I'd rather try and keep the remaining two ports open for ease of use.

well their are a bunch of cards out their look for ones for each model laptop you have.

Yes, that is the plan, to look for replacement cards for the laptops...but I was hoping somebody would have a suggestion for a card with a chipset that works reliably with Windows 10 so that I could buy several of that card and/or chipset to install in the laptops I mentioned.

The Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 PCIe Mini-Card has worked well for me in my older Dell laptops running Windows 7 and Windows 10.

If you don't mind occupying a USB port, a quicker and easier solution is an external USB adapter.

The Realtek RTL8812AU 802.11ac model has worked well for me in the same laptops.

idgat said:

Have you checked to see if it's an option to "replace" the (existing?) card? i.e. the current wifi is not a chip on the mobo.
And if it is a mobo chip, is there a slot for an internal card?
Alternatively, are you using Broadcom drivers - Windows 10 is pretty good with its own drivers, but sometimes ... not that good. Proprietary drivers can sometimes fix problems.
Conversely, are you already using (forced installation) proprietary drivers? If so, uninstall and just try Windows 10 default drivers.

I've tried every combination of drivers and the card I can find...Windows drivers, Broadcom drivers...they all seem to still do the same thing, i.e. random disconnects or failng to reconnect sometimes on boot or often on wake-from-sleep without restarting the laptop or disabling/re-enabling the wifi card.

Yes, they are all using internal cards in PCIE sockets, so all are replaceable.

flavallee said:

The Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 PCIe Mini-Card has worked well for me in my older Dell laptops running Windows 7 and Windows 10.
If you don't mind occupying a USB port, a quicker and easier solution is an external USB adapter.
The Realtek RTL8812AU 802.11ac model has worked well for me in the same laptops.

OK, thanks, I'll look into that Intel card...I'd rather not need to use a USB dongle if possible.

Make sure you select the correct size wireless card with the correct type connector.

If it's not a "mini card" or "half mini card", it may be too long to snap into position.

The PCIe connector should have ONE notch in the row of pins.

If it has TWO notches in the row of pins, it's probably a M.2 connector.

flavallee said:

Make sure you select the correct size wireless card with the correct type connector.
If it's not a "mini card" or "half mini card", it may be too long to snap into position.

The PCIe connector should have ONE notch in the row of pins.
If it has TWO notches in the row of pins, it's probably a M.2 connector.

They are all PCIe - i.e. one notch, and are all half-height.