I solved my problem. I have two Apple Airport Extreme's (both Generation 4) in my house. I replaced them both with ASUSRT-AC68U Wi-Fi Routers and everything works flawlessly.
It was neurall's mention of the Apple Airport Extreme 4G that triggered me to give this a try. I am convinced there is some incompatibility with the Intel drivers and the Apple Airport Extreme Generation 4 (and perhaps some other Wi-Fi routers as well).
Just to clarify, I have never had any problems with any other devices on my Apple Airport Extreme Generation 4 Wi-Fi network until I got two laptops with Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7260. After getting rid of the Apple Airport Extreme Generation 4, my Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7260's perform perfectly.
To test, I have successfully done the following things (all of which used to be guaranteed to give me a yellow exclamation on my Windows 8 Wi-Fi notification icon and kill my network connection after a short time):
- I downloaded 2 HD movies (6-8GB each) from Xbox Video.
- I copied 40GB worth of music from another PC in my house.
- I performed a full backup of my laptop over the network.
joe_intel, I hope this helps you figure out the bug in your drivers. I definitely recommend you test using an Apple Airport Extreme Generation 4 and placing the Wi-Fi connection under heavy load. For me this was a sure fire way to reproduce the problem.