Well it would make sense that if the os was struggling with a piece of hardware it could impact performance all round... updating software static hardware, do you think when windows updates it takes into consideration all the manufactures... I dont think thats possible. Perhaps you damaged the wifi card. Perhaps the new update caused some issues compatibility wise which slowed the pc in general. You could have tried a roll back.

But I mean you solved the issues for a R100 no less, thats a good deal any day

Something I will keep in mind for the future.