Is my DWA-525 Pcie network card crapping out?

[PopcornMobo]

I had this DWA-525 running in my WinME system that i used for remapping SAAB ECUs and it's been working well.
Lately my little brother asked me to build him a PC for minecraft and whatnot.
Routing network cables across my house is a pain in the ass so i thought i'd throw my DWA-525 in the PC and i'd be set.
One problem is that after installing drivers the card works fine and dandy but only for a very finite amount of time.
I can connect to WiFi and signal strength is good but after a few seconds the card craps out and no longer sees any networks or anything at all.
Disabling and then enabling the card in device manager gets it working for a short while.
The PC is an old DELL oem one running Win7, maybe the it's rejecting the card?

Ps: i know this is kind of a troubleshooting thread but i couldn't find anywhere else to put it, so i put it here in general discussion.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by PopcornMobo

I had this DWA-525 running in my WinME system that i used for remapping SAAB ECUs and it's been working well.
Lately my little brother asked me to build him a PC for minecraft and whatnot.
Routing network cables across my house is a pain in the ass so i thought i'd throw my DWA-525 in the PC and i'd be set.
One problem is that after installing drivers the card works fine and dandy but only for a very finite amount of time.
I can connect to WiFi and signal strength is good but after a few seconds the card craps out and no longer sees any networks or anything at all.
Disabling and then enabling the card in device manager gets it working for a short while.
The PC is an old DELL oem one running Win7, maybe the it's rejecting the card?

Ps: i know this is kind of a troubleshooting thread but i couldn't find anywhere else to put it, so i put it here in general discussion.

Reseat the card...

[PopcornMobo]

Originally Posted by RJARRRPCGP

Reseat the card...

Already did that a few times, switched from one slot to another, no bueno.

[stj]

is the psu good?
btw, how old is the card? i have burned loads of wifi sticks/cards when i used to crack networks - they often get far too hot when you run them continuous.
.

[PopcornMobo]

Originally Posted by stj

is the psu good?
btw, how old is the card? i have burned loads of wifi sticks/cards when i used to crack networks - they often get far too hot when you run them continuous.
.

I can't see the date written anywhere, here's some info off the card.
P/N: RWA525A....A1G
H/W ver.: A1
F/W ver.: 1.10
S/N: PVOV1B5006504

Nothing else seems to be failing but i'll check the PSU.
If these overheat then maybe i could pull off a cheeky reball? Rehot WiFi card, bro.

[stj]

i used to fit heatsinks to them.
back when i was seeding torrents over wifi 24/7!!!

[PopcornMobo]

I took the PSU apart and found two bulged caps so i thought bingo.
Replaced them with some nichicons and the card still does what it did.
Although touching behind the card feels quite warm, might that the little BGA is overheating.
I'll try taking the shield off and sticking on a heatsink.

[PopcornMobo]

Looks like i went off to modding the card before i posted the reply above.
Well i stuck on a rather large heatsink from an AGP GPU with the help of a thermal pad, double sided tape and a piece of steel bent to a C shape to press the heatsink against the BGA.
And *drumroll* the card works now!
Not sure whether it's the heatsink or the pressure against the BGA but the card works without crapping out now, which is what matters.

Now my little bro can play minecraft on his new pentium 4 520 beast gaming PC with a blazing fast 6600GT GPU and a whopping 2 whole gigabytes of RAM (it's what i had laying around ).

[ChaosLegionnaire]

might wanna ensure the case has enuff case fans to keep it well cooled. the 6600gt can run quite hot esp if it has the stock heatsink. the 6600gt typically runs at 80°C or more with the stock heatsink! that and the presshot p4 cpu is probably whats making the internal case temperature so hot that the wifi card craps out due to the heat!