Also a note, my Intel 7260 showed up last night and I dropped it in my laptop, HP Envy 4t. I can confirm it works perfectly in the laptop. So almost deffinitely no BIOS Whitelist on the HP Envy 4t (specifically 4t-1030us is the model). That or somehow it is whitelisting ALL Intel wifi adapters (which would be odd).
Scared the crap out of me though. I took off the back cover (which I have done numerous times before), slapped in the new one, gently set the laptop down on the back cover, booted and ensured it worked okay, loaded the latest drivers, rebooted, made sure it still worked and then shut it down. Screwed on the back cover and then half an hour later I went to turn it on, and nothing. The Wifi function key light would flash a couple of times and then nothing.
Long story short, it appears one of the screws if overtightened either shorts something, or pops a connection loose preventing it from turning on. When reassembled with the screw very lightly tightened it boots just fine. Tighten it down another 3/4-full turn and it just flickers the wifi light and refuses to boot.
Freaky.
Anyway, working fine now and the 7260 is great. Still only 2.4Ghz 300Mbps routers (Netgear 3500L V1 routers), but my wireless speeds went from 19-20.5MB/sec up and down with an average at 20MB/sec when close to my router to 20.2-22MB/sec, 21MBsec average downm and 19.5-21MB/sec up, average 20.2MB/sec up.
So a slight increase in Tx speeds, but Rx is a good 5% or so improvement on average. Performance at distance is also better and received signal strength is a little higher. Sitting at my kitchen tablet with a wall and about 8ft between me and the router before with the 2230 it was -40dB, now it is -37dB according to inSSIDer (With the very slight performance boost there, which are the numbers above, however even getting closer and without the wall, the performance does not get better with either NIC).
Also shutting down the WAP and connecting to the one across the house, I manage to get up to about 3.2MB/sec on 20Mhz 2.4Ghz with -65dB signal strength still sitting at the kitchen tablet, which is up about 25% over what the 2230 could manage with similar signal strength and location. I didn't test the upstream speed though for that. Claimed connection speed with the 7260 is 35Mbps, with the 2230 it was 24Mbps claimed connection speed at that location. Near the basement router it'll connect at the full 150Mbps that the router is set for and manages around 12MB/sec down, which is roughly what it was doing with the 2230 (it might be half a MB/sec faster now, I rarely use the laptop on that side of the house and I didn't do back to back testing for that scenario).
So I am guessing better amps in the 7260 over the 2230 and/or better signal processing allowing the higher download/receive speeds, or a combination (the slightly increased signal strength says to me better amps, but close in I don't think it would make a difference on speeds, so I am thinking a combo).
Anyway, very happy with it. I can't wait to get a TP Link Archer and start running with the 11ac goodness now.
