Wi-fi connectivity problem

Rice4HOF

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SoSH Member
Jan 21, 2002
1,887
Calgary, Canada
My laptop keeps disconnecting from my home's wifi.  It will load a page and as soon as I refresh or try to load another page it will show it's disconnected from the internet and I need to manually reconnect.  This works for about 30 more seconds and then I need to do it again.
 
Couple of obvious potential problem sources:
1) My laptop - but it connects fine to any other wifi (at work, starbucks, using my phone as a hotspot),
2) my home's wifi - but all other devices (phone, xbox online, wireless netflix) all work fine with it.
 
So, WTF?
I did some googling and saw some answers to similar problems, which suggested I run a  "netsh winsock reset" from a command prompt and restart the PC.  Did that... and it worked!  For a day or so. Now I have the same problem again, and resetting the winsock doesn't seem to do anything.
 
Any ideas on what I should look at? I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling my wireless network adapter from device manager. Predictably it didn't help (since it works fine for every other network).
 
What could be causing ONLY my laptop to have an issue connecting to ONLY one particular wireless network?
 
 
 

SumnerH

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Jul 18, 2005
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It sounds like a flaky driver. Check to see if there's a device driver update available. Sometimes you can turn off certain newer features to stabilize things.

Failing that, switch network adapters if you can (often tougher on laptops).
 

Rice4HOF

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 21, 2002
1,887
Calgary, Canada
Driver is already updated. I don't see any obvious features to disable.
I do have a USB wireless adapter somewhere. I'll see if I can find it and try that out.
 

derekson

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Jun 26, 2010
6,243
Have you updated the firmware on the router? I've frequently found that can fix connectivity issues with one seemingly random device.
 

Couperin47

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SoSH Member
This discussion is taking place without any identification of the hardware involved, which makes most answers pure speculation. I'll just add that my experience in the last 5 years with both DLink and Netgear routers is that each new firmware issued creates at least as many new problems/issues as it solves. The only sensible way to approach their firmware is to wait months after each new version, check the resulting issues reported in their support forums and then select firmware based on which issues you personally think you can live with ...
 

Rice4HOF

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SoSH Member
Jan 21, 2002
1,887
Calgary, Canada
Complicating everything is the fact that I'm renting a room and using the landlord's wifi. I don't actually have access to their router. I have mainly ruled out that it's a problem with it as all other devices connect fine. Last night after connecting and disconnecting about 20 times suddenly it worked fine for a couple of hours. Which leads me to believe it is a "flaky" adapter in my laptop. I will try using an external one as soon as I find it and see if that clears it up.
 

Rice4HOF

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 21, 2002
1,887
Calgary, Canada
Update: So I plugged in my external USB wireless dongle (ASUS USB-N13), connected it to the network and it worked fine.  For a while. The next day same thing... connects/disconnects after a few seconds and after several tries it connects and stays connected. (I disabled my built in network adapter - it was an Intel N 7260) Sometimes it takes 5 minutes, sometimes an hour. It ALWAYS works when I unplug and replug the router back in. The router is actually a cable modem / wireless router provided by our ISP. It is a CISCO DPC3825 DOCSIS 3.  
 
So, same symptoms with both adapters - therefore leads me to believe the problem is not the adapter. Router? I have access to it and can get into the settings and change them, but not sure if there's something specific I should be looking for?  (And again, problem is ONLY with my laptop, all other wireless devices work fine with the router)
.
Help?