WiFi Connection Keeps Dropping Out

[AB2112]

I'll preface this by saying the PC was ordered from PCS last month and arrived on Saturday in fine working condition.
The first day, I set up a few things and everything was working normally.

By yesterday evening, the WiFi connection started continuously dropping out for the PC, however the actual WiFi connection was fine for every other device in the house.
The WiFi will stop working, saying "No Internet, Secured", and half the time, simply disconnecting (as it's still connected) and reconnecting will fix the issue, usually for for a few minutes, before it disconnects again.

I've tried a fair few things over the last day to remedy this...

- Uninstalled and reinstalled the Wireless adapter drivers,
- Made sure the drivers and windows itself was all up to date
- Changed the power settings for the wireless adapters so they can't be turned off as a power saving measure.
- Basic things like restarting the PC and WiFI routed, even though it's almost certainly nothing to do with the router.

...And now I'm out of ideas. It might go a few minutes or a few hours before disconnecting, but it always happens again and It's driving me mad at the moment, as I can't download the things I need to get the new PC set up, with the internet connection cutting every ten minutes.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ubuysa]

Have you screwed on the two antennae from the welcome box? They look like short pens and they just screw on to the two large brass coloured screw fittings on the back. You can orient them in whatever directions give you the best signal.

 

[AB2112]

Have you screwed on the two antennae from the welcome box? They look like short pens and they just screw on to the two large brass coloured screw fittings on the back. You can orient them in whatever directions give you the best signal.

They were already screwed on when I unboxed the PC, although I haven't reoriented them.

The WiFi was working the day I got it, but as of yesterday afternoon increasingly dropped out... Irritatingly usually when I sit down to use it. It can be fine for an hour if I leave it, only to disconnect 5 mins after I start using it.

 

[ubuysa]

Go into the advanced settings for your WiFi adaptor (in device manager) and set Roaming Aggressiveness to off if you can or to the lowest value if not.

 

[AB2112]

Go into the advanced settings for your WiFi adaptor (in device manager) and set Roaming Aggressiveness to off if you can or to the lowest value if not.

Strangely I don't have a Roaming Aggressiveness setting in the advanced part of the config. Four other settings but none that relate to roaming sensitivity.

I've also changed from public to private WiFi in the settings, will restart and see how things go...

 

[AB2112]

Just to give an update, what I did seemed to fix it - because in the last 9 days it has been (generally) alright. It dropped perhaps once or twice in the last 9 days.

Today, it's back with a vengeance. No reason I can see for it. I'd been using the PC for about 5 hours perfectly fine, but this evening it suddenly can't hold connection for more than a minute or two before dropping out. "Default gateway is not available" is usually the reason, and I've had this before on my laptop a while ago.

Since I've done almost all fixes I can find online and still no change (at least not long term), I might start to think it's a problem with the WiFi card itself - is this plausible?

 

[ubuysa]

Just to give an update, what I did seemed to fix it - because in the last 9 days it has been (generally) alright. It dropped perhaps once or twice in the last 9 days.

Today, it's back with a vengeance. No reason I can see for it. I'd been using the PC for about 5 hours perfectly fine, but this evening it suddenly can't hold connection for more than a minute or two before dropping out. "Default gateway is not available" is usually the reason, and I've had this before on my laptop a while ago.

Since I've done almost all fixes I can find online and still no change (at least not long term), I might start to think it's a problem with the WiFi card itself - is this plausible?

It could be the card but it could also be something interfering with your signals, and since it's been fine for a time and now it's almost unusable that sounds more likely.

Are you using the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band?

Download inSSIDer3 (free) from here https://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html and install it. That will do a site survey and reveal all the hotspots nearby, some of which may be on the same channel as your router, this is a common problem with the 2.4GHz band. InSSIDer3 can show you the 5GHz band too.

You want to set your router to use the least congested channel (the one that the fewest other hotspots are using).

 

[jerome_jm_martin]

You want to set your router to use the least congested channel (the one that the fewest other hotspots are using).

like ubuysa said, it sounds like a channel congestion, something likely interfere with the signal, oven, microwave, lights, fridge, too many people on the same channel (or band), or whatever else it might be.

If you can check the channels, see wich one are busy and change accordingly (and btw stay on 20Mhz scale).

J.

 

[AB2112]

Are you using the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band?

Settings says it's 2.4 GHz, and thanks for that link - I'll give it a look and will leave an update at a later date. Not seen any fixes suggesting channel congestion (never heard of it) before, so thanks for sharing.

Just restarted the PC and things seem to be running as normal. I'm sure the internet connection will collapse moments after I upload this message, but it's strange that it can be terrible before restarting and fine after.

 

[ubuysa]

Settings says it's 2.4 GHz, and thanks for that link - I'll give it a look and will leave an update at a later date. Not seen any fixes suggesting channel congestion (never heard of it) before, so thanks for sharing.

Just restarted the PC and things seem to be running as normal. I'm sure the internet connection will collapse moments after I upload this message, but it's strange that it can be terrible before restarting and fine after.

You might try switching to the 5GHz band, it suffers much less from congestion. It doesn't have quite the range of 2.4GHz nor does it penetrate walls quite as well. Worth a try though?