PC detects network, can't connect

[je1983]

What would cause the pc to detect the signal but not be able to connect?

I've been using my new pc without problems for the past five days, connected to the same wifi router, 3 feet away separated by a wall. Signal strength is strong I can detect other routers in my building. Other devices connect without issue to my wifi router but whenever I try to connect my pc, it says it could not connect. Troubleshoot network doesn't help. Uninstalling and reinstalling the adapter doesn't help. All drivers are up to date.




Specs:
TPlink 300Mbps router
Win7 64 bit
asus pce ac56 1300Mbps dual band pci-e wifi adapter

 

[Ralston18]

Could be other factors involved. Signal strength can be strong but interference will disrupt communications.

Have you doublechecked that the wireless adapter settings match the router? SSID, password, security.

Can you try the PCI-e adapter in another computer or try another PCI-e adapter in your computer. Make sure that the adapter is fully seated.

Just re-orienting the antenna's may help - do not need to be straight up and down.... Or maybe an antenna extension on the PCI-e card will help.

What kind of a wall is in between? Is your desktop on the floor? Can you temporarily more either the desktop or the router to see if that makes a difference.

 

[je1983]

Actually this is a new pc that i replaced my old pc with and placed in the exact same location. The old pc was also experiencing the same issues, I thought that due to it's age and the fact that it was experiencing multiple other issues it may have been the motherboard.
I did try changing pci slots and two different wifi routers as well as two different boot drives that showed the same thing. That's what led me to believe it was the motherboard finally on it's way out.
Now that I have a new pc experieincing the exact same thing I'm quite baffled. The new pc is using the same 400w power supply but there are no real indications the psu is to blame.

All my other devices (2 laptops, 3 phones) connect without issue, although none of them are connected 24/7 to the router and mostly connected while in the same room as the router.

Wifi router, tplink wr841n 300Mbps, is in the living room. It's less than 2 feet away from where my pc is in the bedroom separated by a wall, maybe 12 inches thick. New pc is using an Asus pce ac56 dual band 1300Mbps ac router. Old PC had a linksys 54Mbps pci card for over ten years and recently a tplink wr851 300Mbps card to match the router when we upgraded our internet.

Old pc win7 32 bit, i tried with two separate hdd's with the same os showing the same issue. New pc win7 64bit.

I was trying to simplify it by just asking about what would cause the pc not to connect but if you are interested in the full story with additional details here is the link to the original question:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/620776/pc-wont-connect-to-wifi-router/


EDIT:This has been the same location for my pc and routers for well over 10 years. There is a television, ps3, and dvd all in close proximity to the router that never caused issues. The pc is near a fluorescent lamp, am/fm radio nearby and a fan that shares the same extension cord which causes the pc (both new and old) to occasionally make the device disconnected sound when I turn it off.

 

[Ralston18]

As I read your posts the only thing that has remained constant is the location....

The location may not have been a problem before but something subtle has changed. Could be interference from another source in your building: another wireless network, a baby monitor, security system....

Unplug the fan and leave it off for a few days. Try a new extension cord/power strip. Maybe there is some internal deterioration in the existing cord that has developed to cause the interference and subsequent disconnects. Especially if you are hearing the disconnect sound.

I tend to be cynically minded and generally observe that new products are seldom as good as the older versions. Thus more susceptable to damage, interference, poor design, cheap components, little or no QA. Not at all surprising that problems start happening sooner rather than later.

 

[je1983]

Thanks for taking the time to read it. I will be taking those steps in the coming days.

One other constant is the PSU, I'm using the same 400w antec Neo Eco psu from my old rig that at one point was a likely candidate for the cause because after a few restarts one of the four hard drives would disappear. I think I managed to sort that out by securing the sata cable, also it's unlikely that a PSU fault would cause a lone wifi issue (I'm not an expert) and not affect anything else on both pc's. I may be wrong about that, if I am, I hope I'm not doing further damage by continuing to run the pc while trying to sort out the problem.

 

[Ralston18]

Well the PSU now becomes another constant. Power problems can manifest themselves in many ways.

If it is only 400 watts you probably should total up the current load being imposed by the host computer: i.e., CPU, memory, fans, GPU, 4 hard drives, etc.. As an older PSU it may no longer be really able to keep up with the overall load.

 

[je1983]

Thanks. Any more advice on this wifi situaton? I've tried resetting the router several times, this is the only pc that still has issues connecting to it while the other laptops and phones connect without any difficulty at all.


Sometimes I think it's the psu, then other times it seems like the router because over the past few days, I've been able to turn of the router and turn it back on after a few minutes and get a connection. It would eventually disconnect but turning it on and off worked for a while. Today, several attempts to turn off both the pc and router has not worked to connect it. Other laptops and phones connected throughout the apartment without issue.

 

[Ralston18]

Take another look at the router's logs.

Likewise open the computer's Event Viewer logs - see if there are any error codes, warning, or informational entries regarding network connectivity.

You might try flushing the dns cache to see if doing so restores performance.

 

[je1983]

I've done that dns flush, it didn't help. Right now randomly restarting the pc and router sometimes works.

Where would I start learning about the logs? I don't know enough about routers and wifi to be able to check logs and my poor eyesight won't let me look at pc displays for more than a few minutes at a time without starting to get a migraine.

 

[Ralston18]

The router's logs (if the router has them and if they are enabled) are accessible via the router's admin pages. You need to have the router's login and password to access the logs.

The Event Viewer logs can be accessed by pressing the Windows key and the "R" key together. Type "eventvwr" (without the quotes) in the Open box. There will be some folders that will open to show the various logs.

Fair warning: The logs are overwhelming and it takes some time and effort to get a sense of the organization and how to move around the various folders. Some logs may be empty. Errors and warnings are flagged with red and yellow icons. Right clicking any given entry will provide more details about the entry. Error codes (number) or some text explanation is what you want to find. That error code or text, in turn, can be googled for more information and possible fixes.

(Note: It is normal to see lots of errors- some are quite common and basically the system will deal with and correct the problem. Those common errors are the ones used by scammers to "prove" your system is "broken", "infected", etc. and therefore you are asked to grant the calling scammer access to your computer and/or pay for some repair via your credit card. If you get such calls - just hang up.)

You really do not need to worry about doing much the first couple of times other than just explore the logs. After you become comfortable with navigating the logs watch for new entries. Especially after restarting pc and the router. See what new errors or informational entries get added to the logs.

And look again as soon as the next disconnect occurs.

As for the migraines, may be the flicker rate of your monitor - however, you should see a doctor and get things checked out.

 

[je1983]

Thanks for all that. You weren't kidding about the logs being overwhelming. I think I tried this in the past with a different problem on my old pc and gave up because of all the thousands of entries.

I took a bit of a break from dealing with this frustrating shit and stayed away from my pc for most of the past two days. It seems the wifi goes off and connects again when the computer feels like it, all totally random, no pattern at all that I can see. There were also times where plugging in a usb 3.0 thumb drive caused the wifi to disconnect and reconnect as soon as the drive was removed.

Today I tried to isolate the issue once again and disconnected the dvd-r (my old one did not have one) and a 1tb drive, one of four I had connected. Now the wifi seems good. I've restarted twice without issue, disconnected and reconnected without difficulty. I'll monitor this for a few days to see what happens. I don't know what this would mean if the connection stays good while the hard drive is disconnected. I tried the same thing with my last pc and still had the connection problem, also ran it with just the main bootable drive with no others connected and still had the issue. Maybe it's the hard drive itself causing a problem, or a bad sata connector?

 

[Ralston18]

May be hard to determine at this point.

As for the Event Viewer logs - no harm in clearing them so there will not be so much to dig through.

And you can sort by the severity of the errors by clicking the top of the column.

After your "PC break" (good idea by the way), clear the logs, and revisit Event Viewer as warranted. See what entries are logged.

 

[je1983]

I thought I was on to something there having the pc connect without issue for two days while I had one of the four hard drives and dvd-r removed. It stayed connected after three or four more restarts, several attempts to disconnect and reconnect the network and turning the router on and off.

I put the hdd back on today, and the pc worked for most of the day before it started exhibiting the same issues. After it would not connect again, i removed the hard drive hoping it would solve the problem but I'm back to not being able to connect my pc wirelessly.

This is the longest I've gone without being able to definitively figure out the cause of a pc issue. I wish something would just explode so I could figure it out already.

 

[Ralston18]

Look at the Event Viewer logs starting at the time you put the HDD back on again and up through where the problem started again.

Sort the entries so the red errors will be grouped together. Look for error codes and warnings especially network related.

Look at the yellow and then the informational entries. Focus on entries around the times above.

 

[je1983]

Thanks for staying with me on this. I checked the event viewer this morning, and I get multiple DHCP client errors since last night when I tried logging on again, nothing else that i can see right now that points to anything else.

Here's what it says:
Your computer was not assigned an address from the network (by the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 0x30F9EDF0C629. The following error occurred: 0x79. Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.

That's copied from another post but apart from the address, it's the exact identical error shown on my pc.


I tried doing some ipconfig inputs but all i get are messages saying "Media disconnected" but I'm not sure if that's related to my issue. Also, when i check the status on the asus program for the adapter, it shows no mac address (bunch of zero's instead of a numbered address), but I don't know if this is relevant either.

Was i wrong in assuming this was an issue with my psu or other hardware? As I've mentioned in this post, this happened with my old pc and other problems led me to believe it was a motherboard issue. Since my new pc was using the same psu, I thought that it might have been related but it only started happening after about 7-10 days of use on the new pc. All other devices in the household still connect without problems.


It's early in the morning and I've only just started looking at this new stuff so I'll try to see what comes of it.


EDIT: This new pc is using the same psu and hdd's as the old one. The main drive was a 2 or three week old replacement running win 7 32bit after the old main drive failed on my old pc, shortly before I started getting the wifi problems. I am using the same main drive with a fresh install of win 7 64 bit but there was a windows.old folder as well as some other folders from my old install which seem to have carried over to the new install which may or may not be related to this whole situation.

 

[Ralston18]

I like the simplicity of @nicholasporison's suggestion.

Try it and post the results.

 

[je1983]

Don't panic with this wifi issue. It could be a SSID issue. It won't disable after reset your SSID. Solution, delete the old SSID from the list of networks from your Wireless Network Manager. Open your Control Panel > click Network and Sharing Center > Manage wireless networks > select the network with the old SSID and click remove. It will work fine.

I did that last week, it did not work.


I've got a connection now but it disconnects when I plug in the usb like it has done in the past.


Any other suggestions for this highly frustrating and unsolvable problem?

 

[Ralston18]

Do you have a USB extension cable?

If you plug that cable just by itself into the USB port does the wifi connection disconnect?

If not, then plug in the thumb drive into the other end of the USB extension cable.

Any other USB devices you could use and test with in the same manner?

The goal is determine if the USB port is the issue or the USB device (thumb drive) being the issue.

 

[je1983]

I have a usb extension but the computer iscurrently not disconnecting the wifi when I use the usb right. It happens sometimes but not all the time.

Also, sometimes I get a "Device can perform faster" message and transfers using my sandisk ultra usb are limited to 25Mb/s while other times, there is no message and transfer speeds are around 40MB/s matching the devices rated write speeds.


I'm pretty sure all the drivers are up to date, maybe it's a windows 7 thing. I don't suppose this could be a psu thing, or should I now stop worrying about that being a factor ?


EDIT: Oh yeah, I don't know if I've mentioned it in this post but my pc also makes the device connected/disconnected noise sometimes when I turn my desk fan on and off despite it not being physically connected to the pc by usb or wire. It does share the same extension cord from the wall socket. It's happened with both my old pc and the new one...

 

[Ralston18]

Seems to be centering around a power issue - and USB as well. Any powered or unpowered USB hubs?

The electrical extension cord: Is that one of those surge protector types wih multiple outlets? That would be the easiest to swap out with something new.

Failing that then it could be that the old Antec 400w PSU is having some intermittent problems.

 

[je1983]

Thanks for keeping up with this.

As I mentioned earlier, my I re connected the 1tb drive that I removed and within the day the pc lost the wifi connection. I removed it and it took several attempts to get the wifi to connect but it has stayed online over the weekend without issue. I was afraid to try anything since I wanted a connection to live stream several olympics and motorsports events over the weekend.


Now I have a bit of free time in the mornings to try it out again. Just a few minutes ago I restarted several times and had no issue with the wifi (still without the 1tb hard drive). I did plug in the usb 3.0 and it caused the wifi to disconnect and connect again when I removed it. I put it back on and the second time it did not disrupt the wifi, although I did get the "this device and perform faster" bubble and transfer speeds to the drive were limited at 25MB/s and not the 40+ that I sometimes get. Other usb drives also connect without causing issue.


Event viewer from around the time I did this shows some Name DNS errors, something about DCOM timing out, WLan extensibility module has stopped, WUDRFRd failed to load which is a driver error related to a Kingston drive I used. I've done some quick searches they don't seem to be related to the wifi issue.


I'm off to run some errands but I should have some time later to try a different configuration with the drives to see if there is any pattern at all or if it's all just a fluke. I tried with my old pc to run just one hdd and I still kept getting the wifi issue so I don't know why keeping one drive disconnected with this new one seems to be working ok as far as the wifi is concerned...

 

[Paul NZ]

TPlink's products arent that good (well some of them aren't). Update the firmware on it

 

[Ralston18]

No problem. You are doing all of the work....

Reference this link:

http://www.ehow.com/how_7467534_fix-dcom-error.html

Not as a solution per se but simply to demonstrate that errors (Event Viewer and otherwise) can provide clues.

And your efforts seem to be narrowing down the problem in that you can replicate the problem by removing and reinstalling drives. And as you have discovered the order matters.

But you also have" WLAN Extensibility errors"

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/solution-wi-fi-connects-disconnects-reconnects/3900c9a6-daf9-4fa8-b5d0-eb04a4387347

and

"WUDRFRd failed to load which is a driver error related to a Kingston drive" errors

http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/268212-driver-driver-wudfrd-failed-load-device-error.html

Very likely you have seen those links and probably many others. Plus a bunch of those "download this" and we can "fix that" where "that" can be a fill in the blank variable....

Clear the Event Viewer logs and go through the drive remove and reinstall process again. Look at the order of the events and errors being reported. Right click for the detailed error codes.

Another way to dig in deeper is to use "WIN" + "R" and type "services.msc" (without quotes) in the Open Box.

If you right click a service you will see a drop down window that includes "Properties" as a selection. Clicking properties will provide more information about that service, its status, and its dependencies and what is dependent on it.

The idea (to help forestall some frustration) is to take what you know so far (mainly being able to replicate the wireless connectivity loss) and watch for the starting/initial event entry that correlates with the eventual loss of wireless connectivity.

Once the initial error is identified that can be addressed and then on to the next (if necessary).

 

[je1983]

I did do some quick searches and skimmed through some posts regarding that stuff but not those particular posts. I was able to try one of the solutions for the WLAN thing, going into services.msc and configuring the WLAN from there but it did not work for my issue. I'll look into those links you sent in the morning when I'm less exhausted.

So far today I tried to reconnect the dvd-r (which I had disconnected along with the 1tb drive), which resulted in no wifi connection. Several restarts didn't fix the situation but I got the wifi back as soon as I disconnected it.

I've also seem to have picked out a pattern with the usb. If I connect it and i get the "this device can go faster" message, the wifi stays connected but the transfer speeds to the usb devices are slow at around 25Mb/s. If I don't get that pop up, the wifi disconnects but the transfer speeds to the usb from the pc are at the rated 40Mb/s speeds.

Tomorrow I'll try connecting and disconnecting the three currently connected drives in different configurations to see what happens.

 

[Ralston18]

Excellent. Patterns are good news.

Are you still using the Asus pce ac56 1300Mbps dual band pci-e wifi adapter?

One link I found related a similar problem. Seemed that some USB drives drew more power and knocked off the USB wireless adapter. A low power USB device did not cause that to happen.

Your wireless adapter is PCI-e but still, of course, draws power.

The apparent pattern you have noticed seems to indicate that at some certain level of power load the wireless adapter drops out.

Then without the wireless adapter load the usb devices get "full" power.

The specific devices (including the DVD-R), their respective power draws, and the order of connection determines when the wireless adapter's power becomes too low for it to function. Or perhaps even recover if power is too low and it goes "off".

Seems to be swinging back to a power/PSU issue.

Maybe someone following along can provide a suggestion or two with regards to some additional tests that may help verify some power issue.

But in the meantime your test plan with respect to the three drives is as good a start as anything I can think of right now.

Check the individual drives/device specs for power requirements. As you connect and disconnect various devices tally up the wattages. Probably a bit rough and crude but if you establish that wireless drops at or above some given total wattage then that may be conclusive to some degree. Do you have a Kill-o-watt meter by any chance....? May find a few minutes later today to dig mine out and see just how power sensitive it may be.