Question Internet connection resets every 20 minutes or so

[tjdickinson]

I've read through around 15 or 20 similar posts, but as none were sufficiently similar to my problem to give me a solution (different effects, very old, etc.), I've decided to post it as a new question.

I've found that for the past week or so, my laptop resets its internet connection every ~20 minutes or so. Normally it goes unnoticed, but if I'm in an online call (ex. Google Meet), it disconnects me and I have to refresh to resume the call. My laptop is an Asus ZenBook running Windows 10 Home 64 bit 21H1 build 19043.1052. I am connected via WiFi directly to the router (5GHz). I don't notice the issue on other devices, including another laptop connected via WiFi to the same router (ex. it doesn't interrupt watching videos on YouTube). That doesn't mean the issue doesn't happen on other devices, but just that I don't notice it.

I'm sufficiently tech savvy to follow most troubleshooting instructions, but not enough to figure out the steps on my own.

Thanks for your help!

 

[microtank]

5 ghz. You have to be in the same room for it to effectively give a consistent real time connection for a phone call or a game, or monitoring graphs like the stock market. If the router/modem is broadcasting a 2.4 ghz frequency then that’s ideal for another room or even floor from the main node. That or your laptop or network is exceeding bandwidth. I accidentally misread a function on 1 of 5 wireless routers and the latency jumped up to 4000 ms yesterday. That’s 4 seconds per URL/IP obtained on whatever task that I wanted done. Device manager lets you choose the 802.11 standard in windows

 

[tjdickinson]

Well, I’m sat literally 1 metre from my router, so I don’t think the distance is an issue Bandwidth would make sense because it seems to happen particularly when I’m in Google Meet, but it didn’t do this before, only starting since the new Google Meet interface launched a couple of weeks ago. Problem is I don’t know if it’s caused by Meet or if Meet just made the issue noticeable (because I can see when the network disconnects).

 

[bill001g]

The best first test is to try a ethernet cable so you can see if it is some wifi issue or maybe you have some small internet outages.

I would also leave a constant ping run to your router IP and see if you get any packet loss. To get disconnects it must be more than just a single packet or some small spike in the latency. You might see some pixelation but you should not actually get disconnected unless the outage is fairly long.. ie more than say 1 second.

 

[microtank]

Well, I’m sat literally 1 metre from my router, so I don’t think the distance is an issue Bandwidth would make sense because it seems to happen particularly when I’m in Google Meet, but it didn’t do this before, only starting since the new Google Meet interface launched a couple of weeks ago. Problem is I don’t know if it’s caused by Meet or if Meet just made the issue noticeable (because I can see when the network disconnects).

what resolution is the video calls? 1080p is kind of the standard today so you’d need around 10 mbps. Anything higher needs about 22 mbps+. How many devices are the network/router/extenders and powered on?

 

[tjdickinson]

The best first test is to try a ethernet cable so you can see if it is some wifi issue or maybe you have some small internet outages.

I would also leave a constant ping run to your router IP and see if you get any packet loss. To get disconnects it must be more than just a single packet or some small spike in the latency. You might see some pixelation but you should not actually get disconnected unless the outage is fairly long.. ie more than say 1 second.

Regrettably, my computer does not have an ethernet port.

How do I set up a constant ping?

Thanks!

 

[tjdickinson]

what resolution is the video calls? 1080p is kind of the standard today so you’d need around 10 mbps. Anything higher needs about 22 mbps+. How many devices are the network/router/extenders and powered on?

Good question. AFAIK I don't have the option to change it, so I'd suppose 1080. I have a virtual background turned on, and I get a notification that my computer might slow down with a virtual background, but the issue persists even when my camera is then turned off.

Come to think of it, I had a meeting in Microsoft Teams, and I don't recall having the disconnect problem, although that meeting was only around 15-20 minutes (so I might have just missed it). Maybe it is a problem specifically with Google Meet.

 

[bill001g]

Regrettably, my computer does not have an ethernet port.

How do I set up a constant ping?

Thanks!

It would have taken much less time to use google rather than hope I had time to answer.

ping ip -t