M.2 wireless AC card rated for 100% duty cycle?

[VirtualLarry]

Just curious if any exist. My ASRock DeskMini 110W came with an Intel 3160 AC1200 M.2 PCI-E short card, which has two antennas hooked up to it. I installed it just fine, and it works, but the other day, it started to cut out, after like an hour of usage. (Internet radio streaming, and heavy downloading, 1.4MB/sec). I had to reset the WiFi like 2-3 times. Each time I reset it, it would start working again. I thought that it might be the 5Ghz AC band on my Asus AC68R router, but I have a wireless bridge running here, and I didn't see any of the PCs connected to that hiccup. Anyways, I shut off the wifi controller(s) (also have a USB3.0 RealTek 8812AU connected, through a USB3.0 hub), and plugged in the ethernet, which is connected to the wireless bridge, and no more issues the rest of the night.

So, I'm thinking, either driver problem, or overheating. So I downloaded the newest Win10 64-bit driver for the Intel 3160 AC wireless card, installed it, rebooted, disconnected the ethernet, enabled the Intel wireless in device manager, and connected to my router. So far, so good, but it has only been 10 minutes, and I haven't resumed my hour-long downloads.

Edit: Another thing I noticed. The Intel 3160 AC wireless M.2 card is supposed to be AC1200, and it has two antennas connected. But the antennas are physically very adjacent. I get a throughput of like 142Mbit/sec to my router, to my NAS. With an ethernet connection to my AC1200 bridge, connected to the same router and NAS, I get 350Mbit/sec.

Trying to figure out why the wireless performance of this card is so poor.

The difference is basically 17-18MB/sec to the NAS, versus 42MB/sec.

 

[sdifox]

Cuz wifi. That stuff is not meant for sustained transfer. Specially on a tiny card, probably thermal throttling.

 

[XavierMace]

http://www.harborfreight.com/non-contact-infrared-thermometer-with-laser-targeting-61894.html

 

[gbeirn]

The 3160 isn't ac1200 it's a single 1x1 stream rated for up to 433mbps. I'd say the performance is close to expected. You could jump up to a 7260 2x2 to bring it to 866mbps which should theoretically double the speeds.

There are newer 8260 and 8265 I think but they only support newer Bluetooth standards from what I know.

Intel is the best for wireless cards IMHO.

Edit: I've also noticed with 5GHz AC that setting the channel manually and to the widest band 80MHz+ helps the card negotiate the best rate.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The 3160 isn't ac1200 it's a single 1x1 stream rated for up to 433mbps.

I suppose that would explain a lot. But if it's 1x1 stream, why does it have two anntennas?

Yep, 1x1, AC433.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...al-band-wireless-ac-3160-bluetooth-brief.html

Intel is the best for wireless cards IMHO.
Edit: I've also noticed with 5GHz AC that setting the channel manually and to the widest band 80MHz+ helps the card negotiate the best rate.

I've got my router set to channel 158 or 159 or whatever, with 80Mhz channels.