Avastar wifi adapter disappears

[planetf1]

I have a surface pro 4 with m3-6Y30. SMBIOS is 3.1, bios is 107.1741.768 13/06/2017 currently

I've had the system since around Jan 2017, but am finding that fairly often the network drops out.

Currently my Marvell AVASTAR driver is Band=auto,coalesce-enabled, wake=enabled, wmm-ps=optimized with driver 15.68.9114.29 dated 09/02/2017

I've tried going back to the factory image, as well as fast forwarding to the latest insider build, but across the spectrum the behaviour is consistent

Sometimes I open the surface to find the network status icon just showing a red cross

sometimes this happens after a little period of trying to connect (networks with a *, then lines showing connected, then cycling)

Usually the device manager shows the adapter as not present after this occurs

The kind of errors I see in the log include:

Connectivity state in standby: Disconnected, Reason: NIC compliance

Miniport Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller, {45f9c8af-4ce3-410e-9981-9887eccf0128}, had event Fatal error: The miniport has failed a power transition to operational power

Miniport Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller, {45f9c8af-4ce3-410e-9981-9887eccf0128}, had event Fatal error: The miniport has detected an internal error

Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller : Has determined that the network adapter is not functioning properly.

I've also seen

- 'This device cannot start / This device does not exist' in device manager (probably when I left the UI open)

I gather the same chip manages Bluetooth, but this seems to work -- for example the surface pen will continue to work perfectly even when the adapter is missing

When a issue occurs a reboot will fix it - without moving the device etc

I've been thinking that surely this is a driver issue, but now wondering if it could be bad hardware

It could also relate to my personal config/networking, though there are two other identical SP4 and they don't appear to suffer this issue, the only difference I can think is my logged in userid - and precanned wifi config that gets pulled in.

Any ideas? Any debug/tracing I can do on the adapter that might help? Any new firmware/driver levels? Any offline diagnostics? Or am I looking at sending in for repair/replace?

 

[GreyFox7]

There are some Surface Diagnostics you can download... I have never tried them.

TBH I had so many issues with the Marvell wifi on both my Surfaces after installing CU in April I bought a USB adapter and disabled it. Best $20 I ever spent without question.

 

[GreyFox7]

This is what I'm using
https://www.amazon.com/Edimax-Adapter-Supports-MU-MIMO-EW-7822ULC/dp/B01MY7PL10.

 

[planetf1]

Thanks,,,, I was looking at exactly that adapter earlier! There's also an ASUS AC1200 nano... though I was slightly worried about power drain.
I'm also hoping to get to the bottom of the issue in case it's a hw fault (as item is a year old in Jan) but from reading the forums I still think SW most likely.

Do you know what wifi chipset the edimax uses? Is driver support good/current?

I've disabled AMPDU & fixed to 5Ghz only to see if that makes any difference (2 tips I came across). sceptical....!

 

[GreyFox7]

Thanks,,,, I was looking at exactly that adapter earlier! There's also an ASUS AC1200 nano... though I was slightly worried about power drain.
I'm also hoping to get to the bottom of the issue in case it's a hw fault (as item is a year old in Jan) but from reading the forums I still think SW most likely.

Do you know what wifi chipset the edimax uses? Is driver support good/current?

I've disabled AMPDU & fixed to 5Ghz only to see if that makes any difference (2 tips I came across). sceptical....!

It's got a Realtek chipset which is pretty common. I think the driver was included in Windows because it worked immediately when I first plugged it in.

Sometimes it doesn't connect immediately when waking from sleep... wait for it ... usually connects in a few seconds. If it doesn't yank it out and reinsert it and it's live instantly. Sure beats mucking around with going to device manager and reinstalling the Marvell driver or whatever.

 

[awwshoot]

Fought this issue on and off a while back on our 21 SP4s. Changing the band to 5Ghz only corrected it for us.

My wireless issue now is not having a Roaming Aggressiveness setting!

 

[RELAIS VERT]

Roaming Aggressiveness with dongle : Linksys AE6000

 

[GreyFox7]

Aggressive roaming, since the days of the Vikings

 

[RELAIS VERT]

Effectivement, mais pas sur les Surface pro 1,2,3 et 4
D’où l’intérêt d'une clé USB avec le paramètre de réglable du roaming (Linksys AE6000)
La nouvelle Surface GO posséde l'option de réglage du roaming.