i have 3 of the Asus K55A notebooks and one of them has now been to me, to the OEM, and back to me with the same problem with the wifi adapter.

After about 1hr or so of constant use on the wifi it will just drop packets as between 30-70% packet drop getting out of the box. It is the only one of the three laptops doing this. the other two have zero issues.

Also while the packet loss is happening I am still showing 3 - 4 bars of connection with 4 bars being 100%.

The adapter is up and running as i can ping the loopback and i can ping the laptop from the laptop via hostname, but thats as far as the packets go. I can reset the wifi connection, but hey lets face it thats not something i should be having to do after only 1hr uptime.

the wired connection is fine less then 1% packet loss to google.

during the packet loss i can assure 100% it is not my LAN/WiFi router/connection as none of the other computers in the same network drop any connection or packets.

i know for a fact it is not my network. Also as for distance and line of sight potential issues, im 25ft away in direct line of sight of the wifi router. im sitting right down the hallway from it, so there is no direct interference along those lines that could be causing issues.

so what information from the computer can i gather to force the OEM to replace/repair the wifi laptop/adapter?

Thanks in advance.

Well... for a test you might try taking the laptop and walking the same distance away from the access point in a direction 90 degrees from the direction you currently have from the laptop and the access point.

One remote possibility is an intermittent reflection of the signal. This would leave a strong signal, but it would be interfered with by the reflection.

If it works, it would also show it is not a hardware problem...

cant do that sadly. the router is against a wall and if i take it outside the signal will have to pass through 2 interior and 1 exterior brick wall.

i need data i can provide the OEM with, i know its a hardware issue as ive tested all 3 laptops identically with the 2 working having less then 1% issues of packet loss and the 3rd having 30-70% packet loss.

Have you tested all three at the same location where the "bad" one fails? Does the bad one fail when used at other locations?

If it were possible to swap the wireless module between two of them (assumes they are modules and are truely identical) and if the problem follows the module that would be a pretty strong data point. (Would also require config to new mac ids).

Did they supply the driver? If not then you can't prove any issue I'd imagine.

yes all three have been tested in the same place. i had all three sitting next to me while watching the packet loss rate at the same time. like i said i know for a fact it is hardware. all three show the same info for lshw, are the same model with the same BIOS vs installed. all three are running F19 fully patched.

Then I think a clear explanation of that test method accompanied by a short side-by-side set of timestamped signal strength and packet loss data for each machine would be your best shot.

Without a spectrum analyzer on the input and logic analyzer on the downwind side there probably is not any iron-clad proof that you could present.

So show good faith and good method in your tests and appeal to their sense of corporate pride - and greed - and customer goodwill. Probably not much else can be done.

[EDIT]
You haven't said how old the machines are, but it is implied that they are in warranty.

If they are really recently purchased I think I would call consistent 70% packet loss near enough to failure and ask about a return instead of repair. Even if they don't do that it might make them more responsive about a swap or repair.
[/EDIT]

astrogeek, thats what i ended up doing. yes they are all new. two of them less then 30days old, the one that is failing is one of the newer ones.

ended up calling Asus instead of fighting with NewEgg any longer over this issue. Asus is going to take care of it without question after speaking with the guy for about an hour going into detail on what i had done to test all 3 systems.

You won't do a Q.E.D. on any piece of hardware (and I'm a hardware guy), much less with wifi. I would take the following route.
Replace OS - livecd is fine; retest; test other 2; swap out psu & battery; retest. Write a detailed and untechnical letter.
Your only QED could be Analogue Signature Analysis (aka V/I tracing, = Backdriving with a voltage limited, current limited sine wave and looking at it on X-Y) but it may find nothing. As you have similar boxes, you would have _some_ hope.

well good news. i have my laptop back from Asus, they did replace the wifi adapter and it is working flawlessly just as the other 2 laptops.

so big kudo's for Asus, not so much so for NewEgg.

NewEgg fought and fought with me, refusing to perform any kind of RMA on my hardware due to changing the OS, that they never officially sold me, NO KEY provided. Then when they said they were going to fix the hardware, all they did was format and reinstall win8 on the laptop without performing any test or replacing the adapter that was bad.

after about 1hr of liveChat with Asus via their web page, not only did Asus accept that there could be something wrong with the laptop, but agreed to not only to repair the laptop, but to put the restore partition back onto the laptop WITHOUT arguing with me.

It took exactly as long as they said it would take. 1 week to get to them, 1 week for repair, 1 week to get it back to me.

After running the laptop for about 6hrs yesterday under win8 connected via wifi with zero issues I installed Fedora 19, updated, patched, customized, etc... in under 2hr. I have had zero issues with it since.

It feels good to have a real OS running on this power bit of hardware for such a low price.

Thanks all for the feedback.

Thanks for the heads-up not to use NewEgg. I know a member here has a signature suggesting boycotting them for not accepting Linux as a valid OS so this reinforces that.
It would be interesting to know how NewEgg feel about their alienating Linux users.