I have an HP laptop that I got from work that has recently - say the last 2 months - disconnected from my Wifi like clockwork after 3 hours of use. I am still locked down, so I don’t know if it happens to any other connections, but I have looked at everything I know of and I can’t get it to fix. After it happens I have to turn off my laptop or put it to sleep, and the it will connect again a few hours later, but not right away.
Any Ideas?
i blame you for my issues i had since your breaking things too
Is it your work laptop? Does IT have anything to say about it? Can you try it out with a mobile hotspot and see if it persists?
Don’t know much about wireless stuff but if it’s not a company comp and you can troubleshoot it, I’d try just reinstalling drivers and possibly resetting windows. Could be faulty hardware of course but I’d expect it to be more random. I’m guessing your other devices are working fine.
If its a fixed time. IDoes the laptop have a corp run VPN on it. I am thinking a policy setup to do that.
Does IT have anything to say about it? I haven’t even mentioned it to them since I can’t see them.
Can you try it out with a mobile hotspot and see if it persists? When it disconnects from my Wifi I have connected it to a hotspot and it worked fine.
I’d try just reinstalling drivers and possibly resetting windows. Tried this already.
Could be faulty hardware of course but I’d expect it to be more random. I’m guessing your other devices are working fine. I opened it up to check if the Wifi piece was loose inside. It seemed fine. As far as I can tell EVERYTHING elxe works fine on the same Wifi.
There is a VPN, but it is only on when I activate it. I have to activate the VPN to do anything work related.
Could it be something with the WIfi setup in my modem?
So it doesn’t cut off in 3 hours on mobile hotspot? It’s only on your wifi? and does it cut it only when vpn is on or even without that too?
Sounds to me like it might be something that your router or setup doesn’t like happening in that particular network or some kind of autodisconnect kicks in. Wouldn’t be the first time a company shoots themselves in the leg with overbearing IT security. Can you shoot an email to IT about It? Maybe they’ve run into a similar issue before.
No, it doesn’t disconnect from any other connection. And, I only use the VPN when I’m at work…I’ve been home for 3 months and have only used it once to check my schedule. I guess I could email them or call them, I just think it’s something with my network.
Yeah, that is weird. It kind of sounds like some soet of security issue that causes your laptop to be booted of the network. Maybe dick around in your router/modem settings and see if there’s something that could cause this.
Every 3 hours like clockwork is odd. Looking up solutions didn’t really find anything. Losing connections like that are more of an intermittent type of issue. First off, make sure to update Windows if you haven’t already. Run all Windows Updates. Probably won’t help but won’t hurt either.
One thing I found while searching was this.
For anyone still looking and still struggling.
This issue needs to die once and for all, and I think I figured it out. I’ve been experiencing interruptions every hour or so, especially when transferring or streaming heavy media files and generally having a heavy traffic. My WiFi ran at a crisp 150mbps for some time and then just halted (Limited or no connectivity, or just a stable ON but no internet and no router access).
SOLUTIONS:
FIRST (from other posts) Reserve your IP address, make it static in your router in DHCP section you should be able to find it, follow posts above. You can also set static IP on your computer in Device > Preferences > Scroll down to IP protocol or some such. You can’t reserve all of the devices though, some friends and guests coming over and you won’t be poking at their MAC addresses. SOME routers just don’t give out unique IP addresses and I’ve seen the same IP address given out to 4!!! devices, probably screwed up DHCP, or could be an interference from and extender (DISABLE DHCP ON YOUR EXTENDER AND LET MAIN ROUTER HANDLE IT).
SECOND! Not very apparent and not always advisable, but set a manual channel number on your router (and the same channel on your extender if you have it), use a WiFi analyser app on your phone to find the quietest of all neighboring networks and choose that, or just try 4-6-8, will be a number 1-11 (up to 14 for Japanese devices I think, but all your devices will only go up to 11).
THE LOGIC behind the second part is as such: the WiFi jumps around to find a new channel if the current one gets congested (high interference/packet loss). In reality this should be seamless between devices, but that’s what was causing all my headaches. I analyzed the log files from my router and cross checked the times and my regular interruptions were when the channels had to switch. And they had to switch because of a lot of lost packets (sounds familiar?) and, since the traffic is heavy, you get way more of those lost packets over a congested channel over the same period of time. The switch happens regularly as it seems when lost packets threshold is reached per hour or 15 minute frame or whatever, checkout quality of service QoS on your router and possibly disable it or set a higher threshold if you are in an apartment building with lots of neighbors.
SO find a quiet channel and run with that, haven’t had a single interruption in over a month. The WiFi is magic, you just had to science it a little.
And as a disclaimer, this is my theory, proven by numbers and positive results, if there are communication techs out there we welcome your input.
Mainly the Channel # of your wifi. I’m not sure how close you are to other people’s wifi or devices that would cause interference. There are wifi analyzers you can download to your phone that will show you the quietest channels. Try that. Total shot in the dark and probably won’t help.