Random Disconnects

[mbryant]

So I've been having 2 issues with my desktop, 1 is that I've selected to have my PC connect to my network automatically whenever I log in countless times but I'm unconnected when I log in. 2 is that my PC will just randomly disconnect from my network. I've not had this issue on my laptop or my phone. My roommate hasn't complained either. Any thoughts? My first thought was that it could be my network card. I live in an apartment, would a power line adapter be a viable option? 

[Rainbow Dash]

You might be too far from the router. Try moving closer to the router. Or you might have some power cord disrupting the WiFi antennas. Also microwaves could also disrupt the WiFi, had a friend with this issue so they just routed an Ethernet cord to the router. My brother had the issue with the WiFi not being automatically connected when he logged in, so he updated his WiFi card drivers.

[mbryant]

10 minutes ago, Rainbow Dash said:

You might be too far from the router. Try moving closer to the router. Or you might have some power cord disrupting the WiFi antennas. Also microwaves could also disrupt the WiFi, had a friend with this issue so they just routed an Ethernet cord to the router. My brother had the issue with the WiFi not being automatically connected when he logged in, so he updated his WiFi card drivers.

what about this one, at times my 5Ghz network will be connected but in windows it says "connected, no internet access" if I try to connect to the 2.4Ghz network I'll have internet then eventually I'll be able to reconnect to the 5Ghz. As for the distance, I don't think that's the issue. I've gotten up to 80mbs download in here and my speeds are generally really good for me 

 

EDIT: I would say, regarding the "connected but no internet" issue that restarting my router would be a good idea, but this only  happens on my desktop and none of my other devices 

 

[Rainbow Dash]

26 minutes ago, mbryant said:

what about this one, at times my 5Ghz network will be connected but in windows it says "connected, no internet access" if I try to connect to the 2.4Ghz network I'll have internet then eventually I'll be able to reconnect to the 5Ghz. As for the distance, I don't think that's the issue. I've gotten up to 80mbs download in here and my speeds are generally really good for me 

 

EDIT: I would say, regarding the "connected but no internet" issue that restarting my router would be a good idea, but this only  happens on my desktop and none of my other devices 

 

Have you updated the drivers for your network card?

[Alex Atkin UK]

Restarting the router may still be viable.  I have had my laptop and phone occasionally not see the 5Ghz signal at all, even though other devices see it and operate fine.  In my experience, 5Ghz is just a little bit more unpredictable even though when it works its vastly superior to 2.4Ghz.

Another possibility is to try changing the channel.  Some devices can be more suspecible to interference than others so a temporary burst on your channel might knock out the desktop but not affect the others.  Annoyingly Windows seems to be particularly prone to not re-establishing the DHCP lease if the connection drops, sometimes I have to reboot my laptop to get the connection back.  Generally it doesn't happen often enough to be a real problem though.

As for issue 1, my laptop was doing that too until I did a fresh install of Windows 10 recently, now it seems to connect automatically again.  Again, Windows networking is just a bit unpredictable especially with WiFi.

I would second checking the driver too, that can have a big effect on 5Ghz working reliably or not.  The default Windows driver (if that is what you are using) is often not the best.

[mbryant]

11 hours ago, Rainbow Dash said:

Have you updated the drivers for your network card?

 

9 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Restarting the router may still be viable.  I have had my laptop and phone occasionally not see the 5Ghz signal at all, even though other devices see it and operate fine.  In my experience, 5Ghz is just a little bit more unpredictable even though when it works its vastly superior to 2.4Ghz.

Another possibility is to try changing the channel.  Some devices can be more suspecible to interference than others so a temporary burst on your channel might knock out the desktop but not affect the others.  Annoyingly Windows seems to be particularly prone to not re-establishing the DHCP lease if the connection drops, sometimes I have to reboot my laptop to get the connection back.  Generally it doesn't happen often enough to be a real problem though.

As for issue 1, my laptop was doing that too until I did a fresh install of Windows 10 recently, now it seems to connect automatically again.  Again, Windows networking is just a bit unpredictable especially with WiFi.

I would second checking the driver too, that can have a big effect on 5Ghz working reliably or not.  The default Windows driver (if that is what you are using) is often not the best.

I actually ran a driver update last night. This morning before I tried to check this post again I had to reconnect to the network manually even though before I went to bed my computer was connected to the network. I had to manually reconnect twice this morning within 5 minutes of each reconnect. I'll try to restart the router 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Automated driver updates rarely pick up the latest drivers, the best bet is to find out exactly what chipset your NIC uses and find them from the chipset manufacturers website.

Even motherboard vendors have a habit of stopping updating their older motherboards driver pages after a couple of years.

[mbryant]

2 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Automated driver updates rarely pick up the latest drivers, the best bet is to find out exactly what chipset your NIC uses and find them from the chipset manufacturers website.

Even motherboard vendors have a habit of stopping updating their older motherboards driver pages after a couple of years.

I should also note that in "device manager" i dsabled my network card from being powered off and I left my computer for a few hours and it went to sleep then when I came back it was disconnectef AGAIN!. Since my last post before this one everything had been fine. I'm so frustrated.