The ASUS PCE-AC88 is a strong and powerfull card with a little flaw:
The driverpackage that Asus provides is Version 2.8.0.7Â from 2018/04/13 [link]
The driver in this package is version 1.558.48.8 from 2016/09/06
The device-name im device-manager with this driver is “ASUS PCIE-AC88 802-11ac Network Adapter”
My Windows 10 (newest patch 2020/04/20) crashes randomly with this driver whenever the system is under heavy load (any heavy load, not only networking).
After some searching I found the Chip which this card uses. It is the Broadcom BCM4356 and I found a newer driver for this chip.
Because I hate installationpackages I repacked the driver so you can install it without bloadware
Broadcom BCM4356 Wireless LAN Driver (works for ASUS PCE-AC88): [link]
This driver had version 1.558.53.1 from 2017/10/22
After installation the device is not longer an “ASUS”. Now the device-manager sees it as “Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless PCIE Full Dongle Adapter”.
With this driver for me all crashes are gone!
thank u, i’ll see if this works
it didnt work, still having disconnection issues
Sorry to hear that. My card died after 1 year so I returned it. The learning from this is that ASUS can not make wireless-equipment. (Their router-firmwares are full of security-holes, too)
Hi, came across this page after an extensive google search. I am also having issues with the older driver for ASUS PCE-AC88 and would like to try the newest version you’ve put together but I can’t get it to install on Windows 7 (the error message says: ‘not needed (no device for the update present)’. I have tried various things including modifying the INF file with no luck. It does work on the windows 10 partition so not sure why windows 7 won’t play nice. Any ideas? Thanks
Hey Biff,
sorry to head that. The driver is windows 10/11. Windows drivers are designed to be forward compatible, but not backwards. Although sometimes they work in older versions when the driver only usees functions that are valid in the old kernel/OS layer. But this is not guaranteed.
Sadly I can’t test this because I returned my card years ago and use a 2.5G wired connection atm. So I can’t help you on this front.
I wish you good luck. If you do get it working please write the steps here for the next soul who bought this card.
Appreciate the reply! The issue I am having with this adapter is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/9wg8ay/asus_pce_ac88_lag_spike_exactly_every_5_minutes/
Every 5 minutes (with the Asus driver install) the chipset seems to be doing some sort of manual search which interferes with latency. Complete pain for online games but otherwise the connection is very good. Installing the newer broadcom driver on w10 seems to fix the issue. I’ve got as far as getting the device to install the newer broadcom driver and show up as a broadcom 802.11ac chipset but comes up with ‘Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)’ and Install error ‘There is no driver selected for the device information set or element [E0000203]. I think the newer .sys file needs some modification to work on win7 but it is way beyond my capabilities…lol. Given that I still have a dual partition setup I have ordered a new tp-link adapter
Update on this – seem to have fixed it by changing some wifi device settings via the advanced tab in device manager – network adapter properties – main setting that seems to have made the difference is changing VHTfeatures value from the default 7 to 6. If you don’t have this option in the advanced tab the settings may also be found in the registry at the location below:
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\ search for wifi card 00xx folder via driver name ‘ASUS PCE-AC88 802.11ac Network Adapter’ to find the entry
Other settings I changed were:
802.11d Support: Disabled
Assoc Listen Interval: 1
D2 Listen Interval: 0
Roam Decision: Optimize Bandwidth
Xpress (TM) Technology: Disabled
Rest were left as default.
Hope this helps someone.
Hey I’ve had this wifi card for a couple of years now and it’s almost always come back to this problem. I just want to get rid of the thing, can u recommend any alternative pci wifi cards?
Sorry, no. I use cable now. Its just way better. But if any other reader of this have a recomendation, please leave it here 🙂
Hello,
I know it is not related to the problem here but I’m searching for help everywhere. I can not find 5Ghz wifi with the PCE-AC88. Everything tell me to go to device manadger, find the driver, advenced tab and then “channel mode” or something similar and set it to 5G or 2.4G + 5G. But I don’t have “channel mode” and I don’t find anything to set the driver on 5Ghz. However using a wifi analyser I can see 5Ghz wifi but windows can not
Sorry to hear. I have no wifi anymore. So sadly I can’t help you with that.
Buth in the device manager under the device > Advanced there should be some setting that you can set to Auto, 2, 2/5 or 5..