Why's my laptop wi-fi suddenly gone flakey?

[Tim Hall]

Seeing as the OP's other gadgets connect to the router via wifi without a problem, I can't see it being to do with nearby networks using the same channel.

 

[bruce1530]

Depends on the location.

 

[Milkfloat]

Try turning your DNS settings back to automatic. Most people will not need a fixed DNS server.

 

[bruce1530]

The original error does not suggest a DNS problem

 

[mjr]

Seeing as the OP's other gadgets connect to the router via wifi without a problem, I can't see it being to do with nearby networks using the same channel.

Really? Sounds like repeated collisions followed by blacklisting to me.

 

[mybike]

Bear in mind if you use a higher channel that some US based kit, such as my Kindle, will not use the highest channels.

 

[swee'pea99]

Again, thanks all.

Ideally, you want to be separated from other users by 3 channels. I’d set your router to run on channel 13.

Bear in mind if you use a higher channel that some US based kit, such as my Kindle, will not use the highest channels.

Might the latter be a problem if I did the former? (We do have more than one kindle in the house.)
And if I did this, would I then need to change things on all the remote devices, or would they segue cheerfully and without intervention to the new channel?

 

[mjr]

Might the latter be a problem if I did the former? (We do have more than one kindle in the house.)
And if I did this, would I then need to change things on all the remote devices, or would they segue cheerfully and without intervention to the new channel?

The GB and EU versions of devices should use channel 13 (I've tested the old Kindle 3 I have and it worked fine)... but it may be a problem if you've bought kit in the US and brought it home. Of course, it's always possible there's broken stuff out there.

Most devices channel-hop automatically, identifying the network by its name rather than the channel. This allows some routers to autoreconfigure themselves if there's too much interference on a channel.

 

[swee'pea99]

The GB and EU versions of devices should use channel 13 (I've tested the old Kindle 3 I have and it worked fine)... but it may be a problem if you've bought kit in the US and brought it home. Of course, it's always possible there's broken stuff out there.

Most devices channel-hop automatically, identifying the network by its name rather than the channel. This allows some routers to autoreconfigure themselves if there's too much interference on a channel.

Thanks. I'll give that a try...assuming the problem returns. (Almost inevitably, it worked perfectly all yesterday evening, without losing the connection once.)

 

[mjr]

Thanks. I'll give that a try...assuming the problem returns. (Almost inevitably, it worked perfectly all yesterday evening, without losing the connection once.)

Another possibility which has occurred to me, based on

I use it for a bit, then watch some telly, then go back to it and there's no internet.

is that your laptop is trying to go into some power-saving (but not sleep) mode when not in use and is shutting down the wireless device (some are pretty hungry), then some app you've got open is trying to use the network, causing a reconnection, then the process repeats until your router gets fed up with the too-frequent reconnects and blacklists your laptop. I don't know if/how you can tell Windows to exempt the wireless device from power-saving like I can on GNU/Linux.

Viewing the event log on the router (if you can from another device, as restarting the router may blank it) may show this, but it may look the same as if there's interference causing too-frequent disconnect/reconnects (lots of device connected/disconnected statements followed by a blacklisting statement), so it wouldn't be definitive. I've no idea what system logs are available on Windows these days.

 

[swee'pea99]

Another possibility which has occurred to me, based on

is that your laptop is trying to go into some power-saving (but not sleep) mode when not in use and is shutting down the wireless device (some are pretty hungry), then some app you've got open is trying to use the network, causing a reconnection, then the process repeats until your router gets fed up with the too-frequent reconnects and blacklists your laptop. I don't know if/how you can tell Windows to exempt the wireless device from power-saving like I can on GNU/Linux.

Viewing the event log on the router (if you can from another device, as restarting the router may blank it) may show this, but it may look the same as if there's interference causing too-frequent disconnect/reconnects (lots of device connected/disconnected statements followed by a blacklisting statement), so it wouldn't be definitive. I've no idea what system logs are available on Windows these days.

Interesting. Reminds me of a time when I'd had the beast for about 18 months, and all of a sudden it developed this tendency that every time I returned to it after a time away, it would be offline and just refuse to connect, regardless of what I did (turning the router off & on made no difference), until I rebooted. Took an age to track that down, but when I eventually did I found that an update to the wireless device had reset the default so that it went into power-saving mode after ten minutes or something - then (unbeknownst to me) refused to come out of it. Totally useless to me, since I use the thing almost always on mains power, and once disabled, the problem completely went away. Until now. And yes, I have checked to make sure the wireless device is still set to go into sleep mode 'Never'.