Troubleshooting USB wifi adapter.

[CavTECH]

Hey LTT community.

 

A buddy just purchased a TP-Link AC450 USB wifi adapter for use on his desktop and is having issues with connectivity. He's in a large household with 7 other users, with a Virgin Media 300Mbps connection. We can connect to the router via the TP-Link utility fine, but speeds are poor due to a bad signal, although his phone and PS4 connect fine with expected speeds. There's also a Netgear wifi extender plugged into the mains, which again, phone and PS4 can connect fine to with expected speeds, but we can't even find the extender on desktop. Scanned through the TP-Link utility and Windows, and also tried connecting manually, to no avail.

 

Drivers have been reinstalled, etc., tried different USB ports, and the like. Haven't yet tested on another device, waiting for him to update me on that, but otherwise, any ideas?

[AdmnPower]

The phone and the PS4 in this situation have actual antennas in them which help a lot with their connection rates. That micro adapter doesn't. So that's going to be the source of your issues.

 

The only thing that you'd really be able to do without buying different hardware would be to get a USB extension cable and try to use it to get the adapter higher up or out from behind a desk. 

[CavTECH]

Quote

The phone and the PS4 in this situation have actual antennas in them which help a lot with their connection rates. That micro adapter doesn't. So that's going to be the source of your issues.

But it's not about the signal to the adapter from the router being poor, we knew that would be the case, it's the fact that the separate Netgear extender that's plugged into the mains isn't showing up on the desktop in either TP-Link utility or Windows, despite other devices seeing it in their network list and being able to connect.

[AdmnPower]

Well this adapter only supports 5GHz. The extender probably runs on 2.4GHz. That'd be my guess as to why it can't see it.

[CavTECH]

3 minutes ago, AdmnPower said:

Well this adapter only supports 5GHz. The extender probably runs on 2.4GHz. That'd be my guess as to why it can't see it.

Didn't even think to check, completely slipped me by. Cheers.