I have the same laptop, the same wireless adapter, and almost the same problem. After upgrading to Windows 8.1, my adapter will not automatically connect, and after manually connecting, it takes several minutes before it actually works. Sometimes, I have to disconnect from my router and reconnect before it actually does connect. Annoyingly enough, the 16.5.3 driver is what I had installed before upgrading to 8.1, and it worked perfectly fine on 8.
Windows 8.1 has been out for almost a month, and it seems like a lot of people are having this kind of issue. Will the drivers be coming any time soon?