Melchior - The drivers are large, yes, but fortunately it is just a self-compressed 7zip file, when you unzip it, dont run the setup program in it, just point your Device Manager at the driver in the Win7 folder (yes, it says Win7 but it works in Win8 as well).
Dilburt, appreciate the response as well, all of my settings are default with power management turned on at this time, things are looking promising, didnt even drop out on AC at home either, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.