Question Random laptop wifi disconnects

[suckayo]

Hello all, really hope somebody can offer some guidance or tips. My wife and I currently work at home, the modem is in my office and my two computers are hard wired, I never face any connection issues.

My wife on the other hand constantly has connection drops, she's one room over in her office and is on a laptop, a 5 year old Lenovo. She especially gets disconnected when doing zoom meetings, which especially frustrating to her.

I was thinking of just hard wiring her, but this would imply too many invasive modifications that would not be ok because the house is a rental. Something else I considered was a wifi repeater, but I've had bad experiences with them in the past. Does anyone have any suggestions, or any experience with USB wifi antenna or something, kind of at a loss we definitely don't want to get a new laptop

Thanks 🙏

 

[JohnMGotts]

When you say modem, I’m assuming it’s a router/modem combo, the same thing your ethernet cables are plugged into. You probably want to make sure it’s placed in an open area, not blocked by anything and additionally you should make sure the laptop is using the 2.4Ghz band and not the 5. If she is using the 2.4 you might want to switch to a different channel (1,6 or 11) via the router settings. You could also use a power line adapter pair, that way she could plug an ethernet cable into the adapter in her room and use the house electric wires as the transmission cable. The other adapter gets plugged into an outlet near the router and an ethernet cable to the existing router is connected between them.
She could also try a USB wifi dongle with an extension cable so it can be located further away from the laptop.

 

[stonecarver]

You can get really creative running cable over to the wifes office room. Tuck it tight under door on hinge side leaving room and do the same going into her office room. If you need to go around a door frame, just run it up over than down. If your walls are white just get white network cable. You just kind of forget it's there.

Better to deal with the wire before she kindly wants to switch room. Wifi is always hit or miss and if she is zoom meetings and keeps having issues me personaly she would get wired.

 

[suckayo]

When you say modem, I’m assuming it’s a router/modem combo, the same thing your ethernet cables are plugged into. You probably want to make sure it’s placed in an open area, not blocked by anything and additionally you should make sure the laptop is using the 2.4Ghz band and not the 5. If she is using the 2.4 you might want to switch to a different channel (1,6 or 11) via the router settings. You could also use a power line adapter pair, that way she could plug an ethernet cable into the adapter in her room and use the house electric wires as the transmission cable. The other adapter gets plugged into an outlet near the router and an ethernet cable to the existing router is connected between them.
She could also try a USB wifi dongle with an extension cable so it can be located further away from the laptop.

Yes exactly, it is a modem router combo. I will do some testing and place it in an open space, as it is currently in the bottom of a bookshelf.

I'm skeptical of the power line adapters, were currently in Mexico and the wiring sometimes tends to be cheap and it's possible there's no connection between one room and the other, please advise if you think it's worth a shot.

I'm going to clear the router of anything blocking the signal, and change channels on the router settings, and see how we fare.

Thank you so much!

 

[bill001g]

If there was some magic way to see wifi signals in the air it would make troubleshooting so much easier. The things to try that have been suggested tend to be your best bet. The problem is many times wifi problems are because there are just too many people trying to use wifi. All the people living around you are attempting to use the same radio bandwidth.

The powerline networks might be worth a try. Maybe buy from a place that allows returns that way if they don't work you are not out the money.

If you have coax cables in both rooms you can consider MoCA.