Wireless range very short

[Bipo]

edit: it seems not to be Mint related

I have Mint Mate 19.1 x64 installed on an Asus laptop UX303

Wifi speed is normal, but the range is very short; more than a few meters away from the router I can't connect to the Internet. I am still connected to the router, I can ping a website, but no website will load in the browser.

Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 (rev 59)

iwconfig:

Code: Select all

Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=22 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=62/70  Signal level=-48 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:1  Invalid misc:66   Missed beacon:0

I have tried disabling power management to no avail.

Mint doesn't offer any other driver for the network adapter to install

Any thoughts?

I am downloading MX linux right now to try another distribution on a live usb

Thank you for reading

edit: I should've tried another distro first; it is equally bad running MX linux.
I did not use this computer for a long time, but I didn't remember the wifi being so bad. I also *think* there was an option for proprietary drivers last time I used it.
I'm leaving this post (if it's allowed) in case anyone has an idea