Serial# *******

Product # 81EV000HUS

Bios version 7PCN44WW

Hello there,

Not too long ago I purchased this ideapad 530S for school and after around a year of use the battery died, so I purchased a replacement. Not long after that though, the wifi started to cut out and overall the device was very slow. At first I thought it was my internet but after confirming that everything was good on that end I decided to replace the wifi chip with a 01AX769 - Lenovo WLAN 11ac 2x2 INT 9260NGW chip. After uninstalling the drivers and rebooting I still had really bad wifi throughput (we are talking 0-10 Kbps). I have even installed an older driver (2017) with no luck. At this point I'm a little disappointed since my $700 2 year old laptop is a big fat paper weight. If you have any suggestions then I would greatly appreciate it ( I have already cleared all my caches, deleted old files, and all other junk on my laptop for reference)! 

Admin note: serial number edited to prevent potential abuse

Hi Violenteddybear,

Welcome to the Community Forums.

Here's some troubleshooting steps you can perform to try and remedy the issue:

Step 1: Network Reset.
- Right click the Windows icon in the bottom right and select "Settings"(cogwheel) or search for it.
- Select the "Network & Internet" Icon.
- While in the "Status" tab, scroll down until you find "Network Reset"
- Click this and continue, then perform a computer restart.
- Find your network and connect to it (You will have to type in the password (SSID/Key) again to connect)
- Make sure you tick the box that says "Automatically connect to this device" or similar

Step 2: Disable Automatic Hardware drivers update.
- Right click the Windows Icon, select the "Search" Function.
- Type "Control Panel" and select "Small icons" or "Large Icons" in the "View By" top right.
- Click the "System Icon"
- Navigate to "Advanced System Settings" -> "Hardware"
- Click "Device Installation Settings" and Select "No"
** This will prevent Windows from interfering with the drivers of your WLAN and device in future Windows updates.
 
Step 3: Uninstalling Wifi Device + Drivers.
- Right click the Windows icon in the bottom right and select "Device Manager"
- Navigate to the "Networks Adapter" tab and drop it down.
- Right click the "Wireless Network Adapter / WLAN device" and select "Uninstall Device"
- Tick the box "Delete the driver software for this device" if prompted.
- Perform a restart of the computer, then run/install the OEM network drivers provided on the Support Page
- Located under Drivers & Software, Manual Update then Network Wireless: LAN.
- Right click the file and select "Run As Administrator"

Step 4. Checking Bandwidth frequency
Some wireless network cards allow you to limit the channel width via the Advanced properties in Device Manager, so you might try limiting it to 20-40MHz as a test

- Right-click Start and select Device Manager
- Left-click to expand the Network Adapters section
- Right-click on your Wireless Adapter and select Properties
- Select the Advanced Tab and look for a Channel Width setting with the ability to change between 20 / 20-40 / 20-40-80 mhz. 

- Normally 20Mhz for the 2.4Ghz Frequency or 40Mhz or more for the 5Ghz Frequency. Lower then this will affect data rate significantly.

Step 5. Checking Band Frequency
** These settings may differ between WLAN adaptors.  
Try to go to Device Manager again, and right click your WLAN device. Select properties and then "Advanced"
Try forcing the WLAN device to use the 2.4ghz band and turn off the "Auto" for the other band frequency.
If this seems to drop the connection more, then try using the 5Ghz band.
- Depending if the device is far or close to the router, or if there is walls or floors between the device and router, check general frequency band info below.

Step 6. What Network protocol is the Network Interface Card(NIC) using ? Example: 802.11a /b /g /n /ac or /ax?

Here's some General Wifi Info:

Frequency = What network frequency they're able to use. Wifi has two standards, 2.4ghz and 5ghz, but we also have 6ghz and 60Ghz Frequency bands.

2.4GHz (slower, but longer range) , the 2.4ghz band is also a very crowded bandwidth, used by everything from garage openers to microwaves and lots of other stuff.
5GHz (faster, but shorter range). is less crowded, depending on where you live, but because of the higher frequency is not able to penetrate walls as easy as the 2.4ghz.

Bandwidth = The channel bandwidth of a wireless signal determines that signal's data rate. The higher the channel bandwidth, the faster the connection.  Normally you'd use the 20mhz range in the 2.4ghz network frequency and 40mhz or more in the 5ghz network frequency.

IEEE 802.11 = They are part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) protocols, and are the world's most widely used wireless computer networking standards, used in most home and office networks to allow laptops, printers, smartphones, and other devices to communicate with each other and access the Internet without connecting wires. 

Stream Data rate = How much mbit/s you might be (It's an aprox up to calculation) able to see on the Network protocol, determined by the bandwidth used and by the IEEE Network Protocols(802.11xx etc). (ex: 3466 Mbit/s = 433.25 MB/s)

Range = Well, just that, range, determined by the Network Frequency it's on (2.4ghz or 5ghz).

Hope this helps

Regards

Voithos