Question Computer's WiFi connection gets disrupted whenever a new device connects to the WiFi ?

[Eifersucht]

I recently built a new computer and was able to connect it to the WiFi successfully. However, the new PC has an issue where the network connection gets disrupted when a new device connects to the WiFi. I have checked IP addresses and it doesn't look like any devices on the network share the same IP address. The disruption seems to only occur on the new PC. After resetting the router, the issue has not been resolved but it does seem as though different devices connecting now cause the disruption. Any suggestions as to how to resolve this issue?

 

[bill001g]

Does it seem the wifi is disconnecting or is it more it appears connected but does not work well.

What could be happening is the other devices are closer to the router and are hogging the bandwidth. Generally this does not happen much any more since wifi has so much bandwidth....unless of course the closer pc are say doing a huge download.

Can you attempt to use the other radio band. If you could for example force your pc to use 2.4 and let the other devices use 5 they should not affect you. Many router by default set the SSID for 2.4 and 5 to the same so you would have to change it so you can force it to connect where you want.

 

[Eifersucht]

Does it seem the wifi is disconnecting or is it more it appears connected but does not work well.

What could be happening is the other devices are closer to the router and are hogging the bandwidth. Generally this does not happen much any more since wifi has so much bandwidth....unless of course the closer pc are say doing a huge download.

Can you attempt to use the other radio band. If you could for example force your pc to use 2.4 and let the other devices use 5 they should not affect you. Many router by default set the SSID for 2.4 and 5 to the same so you would have to change it so you can force it to connect where you want.

The WiFi will disconnect from PC when a new device connects to WiFi. When my phone connects to WiFi it'll disrupt the PC's connection, but not any other devices in the house. The new PC is closest to the WiFi.


It seems once the disconnect happens, it is able to reconnect shortly after, seemingly without issue.

Since there aren't any downloads happening or other heavy use, it doesn't seem to be a bandwidth issue

 

[doolittle]

curious what brand wifi adapter & driver version you have and what brand router & firmware version you have?

Have seen similar issues where the wifi adapter brand / driver has issues with specific brands of routers...

 

[bill001g]

Very bizarre issue. Unfortunately all good data about wifi sessions is locked up in the chips and they don't let you see. Side effect of the FCC hacking rules, they choose to release nothing now.

It would also be nice if windows even let you see the wifi session information that is available. Maybe there is something in the window event monitor.

If you get lucky there is some error the pc is detecting and drops the session. If the router is having some issue and drops the PC session that is much harder because it is unlikely the router is going to tell you why.

 

[Eifersucht]

The wifi adaptor is built into the motherboard (RZ616 Wi-Fi 6E) with the latest driver. The router is an ASUS Dual Band WiFi 6 Gaming Router. I recently updated the firmware, but it did not resolve the issue.

It is only with the new PC that there is any internet disruption and it resolves after a few minutes. However, it is very annoying. I looked in the windows event monitor and it does display a 1014 error on the affected PC.

 

[bill001g]

Hard to say but the 1014 error from my search says it is related to DNS. BUT this many times is a lie if you were to unplug the internet cable coming into your house of course the PC can not get to the DNS server because it also can't get to any other ip on the internet.

So if we assume it really is a DNS issue most times this is some issue with the proxy function on the router or your ISP dns.

What I would do is go into the IPv4 setting for the wifi nic and set the dns to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1. You might want to set it to also use encrypted DNS.

While you are changing things also disable the IPv6 support in the nic. IPv6 can causes strange issues.

Also check the setting in your browser to be sure they are not using the DNS options that override the OS. This was a feature from before microsoft supported encrypted DNS and browsers implemented it first. You do not want to use this feature because it makes things confusing to troubleshoot.

So if this goes nowhere we go back to more standard testing. It appears you actually have a wifi connection but data does not pass properly. To start with open 2 cmd windows and leave constant ping run to your router IP and the second to some ip like 8.8.8.8. This should tell you if you are losing the connection to your router or if you are just losing the connection to the internet. If both respond when you have other issues then it is something more complex.

 

[Eifersucht]

If it is a router issue, is it normal for the issue to only occur with one device? All other devices seem to operate together fine without disruption.

 

[bill001g]

Not directly but the default is the router run a DNS proxy and these tend to be flaky at times.

You want to eliminate as much as possible because the next step starts assuming the wifi chip is defective or you have a windows issue that you would consider completely reinstalling for.