WiFi Instability

[Count von Schwalbe]

So one of my family members works from home every day, using a laptop provided by her workplace. Her laptop wifi WiFi will occasionally disconnect for 5-10 seconds at a time, at widely varying intervals. I have been attempting to figure out what is going on, but have been unable to nail down the issue.

She works for a fairly small company, so it resources are limited. The laptop does not give her administrator privileges, so I cannot attempt reinstall of drivers, and as the drive uses Bitlocker, I will not risk using other drives in the system.

The IT tech apparently reinstalled drivers, with no effect.
The WiFi card works in another laptop in the limited time I had to test it.
When the WiFi disconnects, the associated section in Task Manager's performance tab disappears. I have not been able to ascertain if this also happens in Device Manager. Disabling and re-enabling the device in Device Manager does not help.

Any ideas about the cause of this would be appreciated.

 

[Shrek]

The Wi-Fi disconnects or the Internet?

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

The Wi-Fi disconnects or the Internet?

The WiFi. I have internet to every other device in the house, and it loses connection to the router entirely.

The issue does not happen with Ethernet connection, but that is only a partial solution.

 

[nguyen]

1. Try to find the power saving option within the Wifi card driver and disable it

2. On your wifi router, look for the Transmitting Power option and set it to Low instead of High (better stability)

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Check using wired internet see if it cuts out.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

1. Try to find the power saving option within the Wifi card driver and disable it

2. On your wifi router, look for the Transmitting Power option and set it to Low instead of High (better stability)

would power-saving kick in even under full load? The main time we see the issue is on Zoom calls, as we use wired most of the rest of the time.

Hi,
Check using wired internet see if it cuts out.

No issues there, but we only have wired in one part of the house, and don't really feel like tearing the walls out until we are done with some other projects.

 

[maxx2575]

hey make sure you dont have the router in a stuffy area as overheating can cause these problems

 

[ThrashZone]

No issues there, but we only have wired in one part of the house, and don't really feel like tearing the walls out until we are done with some other projects.

Hi,
Looks like that location is their new office

 

[1freedude]

Could be overheating. How is the performance while "active"?

While not ideal, a workaround could be a USB wireless dongle.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Hi,
Looks like that location is their new office

It is, but that's not the only place we use it.

Could be overheating. How is the performance while "active"?

While not ideal, a workaround could be a USB wireless dongle.

It seems to ramp up bandwidth very slowly. Not sure about the max bandwidth as it is increasing slowly over a full speed test.