I experienced the same problem too (frequent connection drop), with Intel wifi 2230 on an Alienware m17x R4. My OS is Windows 8 64 bit.
The solution for me was exactly what bjbakker proposed in the 1st page. Just uninstalled any Intel wifi software from add/remove programs first and then kept uninstalling Intel drivers from Device manager until I reached the driver provided by Microsoft (14.8.8.75).
Since then (a week ago) I have not experienced a single connection drop again.
I personally believe that this issue has definitely to do with Intel drivers and not with the hardware itself.