Hi jonesyboy. I was tempted to go the route of a USB wifi solution too, but I really just want to solve this. Reading the thread yesterday just gave me more resolve.
My hypothesis is that there is some setting that will work for my specific router (and possibly others that have the same issue). It may be that the default settings don't work well for all routers. That may pose a challenge for notebook users that hop around on various wifi hotspots. Some posters have mentioned it works fine on some networks, but experiences dropouts on others. Maybe there is a more conservative set of settings (other than completely disabling -N, which seems to have worked for some users) that works more generally across the most common routers, but sacrifices some speed. Channel width? long or short preamble? I don't know enough about these and other to understand if they may could contribute to the problem.
Can you share what model router you are using, the firmware and the wireless settings from the routers admin page? Any other information that you think could be useful? I really think that data would help.
So far, although it has only been about 24 hours, there have been no reported dropouts from my family that use this PC more than I. I've transferred a few 1-2 GB files to test to - no dropouts out. However, the very nature of this problem has been that it is sporadic.
I did notice that I had set the 6235 card to prefer 5.2 GHz band, which was not the default. So just now, I set the preferred Band back to "No Preference" tonight. The NUC may have been be the only device on the 5.2 GHz band - maybe that kept it stable for 24 hours? On 5.2 GHz, I did get a very fast wireless connection. Connected at 300 Mbps, with files transferring at 120 Mbps.
The complete reset of my router may have also influenced this problem. Either way, I do think more time is needed before I can make any conclusion.