I have the above laptop, upgraded from Win7 to Win8 Pro to Win8.1 Pro (all 64-bit). I have been very disatisfied with the factory-installed Atheros AR5BWB222 wireless card, and came across a good deal on an Intel 3160 Dual Band Wireless AC + Bluetooth Mini PCIe card. I removed the Atheros and installed the Intel, thinking it would automatically pick up the drivers if I had my UTP cable plugged in. Wrong! I then shut it down, removed the Intel card, booted it up with no wireless, and removed the Atheros drivers for wireless and BT. Rebooted just to be sure, then hooked up the UTP cable and downloaded and installed the Intel drivers for my card.I then reinstalled the Intel card, booted up, and Windows wouldn't even find it. No listing in Device Manager, no discovery when trying "Scan for hardware changes", absolutely nothing.
I tried numerous other methods- uninstall drivers, insert card without drivers and then install drivers, nothing works. Thinking that maybe the card was bad, I put it in my old Gateway M6850fx (even though it only has a full sized port) and it installed fine, once I went out to Intel and DL'd the drivers for Win7. Had wireless and BT, no problem.
Any ideas on what I can do to get my Acer to recognize it? Does Acer have a "whitelist" like some HP's? If so, is there any way around it? I have the latest BIOS and drivers for WIn8.1 that Acer has to offer, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what to do to make this card work.
TIA!