Wireless USB adapter randomly loses all WiFi networks

JR1911 · July 17, 2023

I recently upgraded to 5G internet and I use a TP-link Archer TX20U wireless USB adapter (https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/usb-adapter/archer-tx20u-plus/) to connect my computer to the WiFi network. It worked flawlessly for about a month but recently it has started to randomly lose connection. It also can't find any WiFi networks until I unplug it and plug it back it in. All my other devices can still find the network so that's not the problem. I've tried to check Windows power management settings to make sure that isn't the issue and I've updated the drivers to the latest version found on the TP-link website but that hasn't helped either.

Is there anything else I could try or is the adapter simply defective?

LeapFrogMasterRace · July 17, 2023

Could be related to the Ryzen 5000 and 3000 USB dropout issue. Happens more often when things like USB storage devices are being used.

JR1911 · July 18, 2023

That's true, I've had problems with my external HDD and the only way I've been able to get it to reliably work is to connect it via the USB hub on my keyboard. I'll try to update the BIOS on my motherboard to see if that would fix the problem.

LeapFrogMasterRace · July 21, 2023

On 7/18/2023 at 2:05 AM, JR1911 said:

That's true, I've had problems with my external HDD and the only way I've been able to get it to reliably work is to connect it via the USB hub on my keyboard. I'll try to update the BIOS on my motherboard to see if that would fix the problem.

For me the BIOS updates seem to have helped with small things like keyboards and mice but flash drives and external SSDS/HDDS still cause issues as well as USB audio. As soon as I plug in external storage my entire windows explorer crashes lol.

I also had pretty bad wifi using a PCI card mostly packet loss despite very good signal strength and high download speed. I switched to a MOCA setup which is where you send internet through coax cables then convert back to ethernet my house has coax practically in every room and since then my internet has been much more stable.

If you use a wifi PCI card you will probably get less hard internet disconnects but you might still experience packet loss.

JR1911 · July 21, 2023

I updated the BIOS and that seems to have fixed the problem, the adapter has now worked without any issues for a few days. I also quickly tested my external HDD in other USB ports and that too seemed to work fine. The BIOS I had before was about two years old and I think it was also a beta version but I had been reluctant to update it as the last time I updated I ran into some problems and I feared I bricked my motherboard but luckily I managed to fix it.