Wow. My laptop is plugged in and fully charged 90% of the time, so the lower-power thing definitely does not apply to my problem of more than 6 months now.

To anyone who is fed up and tired of intel's inability to fix this issue, do yourself a favor and just install a different wifi card. It is shockingly simple to do and there are a ton of YouTube videos which will show you how.

I purchased this card from newegg for $23 --

Intel 3160 Mini PCI Express Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 Plus Bluetooth

I then installed it by watching one of many videos showing how.

Now 5mbps--9mbps has become 20mbps--25mbps. I have a whole new affection for my laptop now.

The 7260 is a failure, at least for Win 8.1 users. Just get rid of it and move on.