[SOLVED] The wifi on my new PC randomly drops for 1-2 seconds every 20-30 seconds. Why?

[StratBecker]

Hi. I recently just purchased a new PC and it arrived six days ago. The PC is an ABS master gaming PC with an Intel i7 10700F, GeForce RTX 3060, and 16GB of RAM. My old computer wasn't working well anymore and I needed an upgrade, so I decided to make the buy. The hardware works incredible, 5-10x better than my old PC, but the wifi is facing serious issues. When it works it's fine, but for some reason the wifi blips out of work for 1-2 seconds every 20-30 seconds. For normal web use this wouldn't matter, but I'm in a lot of zoom meetings and live stream, so its a major problem. All my drivers are updated, though it's possible the prebuild doesn't come with the right WLAN driver. I already restarted the modem and router, and the problem still exists as well. I checked event viewer though I'm no pro, but have seen tons of events which state "The Network List Manager reports no connectivity to the internet." as well as "A connection to the Windows Metadata and Internet Services (WMIS) could not be established." It's possible it's an ISP problem since my newer phone that I got after my old one broke has the same wifi dropping issue, though its every 15-30 mins for 1 min at a time, but for some reason no home devices which are over a year old have this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Ralston18]

Double check that only one network adapter is enabled.

If you are using wireless, then ensure that the wired network adapter is disabled.

If your ISP does not support IPv6, disable that as well.

In addition to Event Viewer check Reliability History. The timeline format may prove helpful in determining what/when the problem started.

Likewise observe system performance via Resource Monitor - good chance that you will see "something" happen when the wifi "blips out".

 

[StratBecker]

Hi an

Double check that only one network adapter is enabled.

If you are using wireless, then ensure that the wired network adapter is disabled.

If your ISP does not support IPv6, disable that as well.

In addition to Event Viewer check Reliability History. The timeline format may prove helpful in determining what/when the problem started.

Likewise observe system performance via Resource Monitor - good chance that you will see "something" happen when the wifi "blips out".

Hi and thanks for the response. I made sure to have the wired network adapter disabled since I'm on wireless, and only one network adapter is enabled. I also disabled IPv6 and the issue still persists. There's nothing about it in the reliability monitor/history. The only thing I see of note are some hardware errors on July 14th. There is an informational event on July 1st but I didn't have the PC then. Since I got the PC there have only been informational events unrelated to the issue I'm having. On the resource monitor, I do see something when the wifi blips out. Both the mbps network i/o and the % network utilization drop to 0 during these moments, I can provide a screenshot of this as well here. The driver for my WLAN that I have as well is Realtek 8821CE Wireless LAN 802.11ac PCI-E NIC #2. It's possible this is not the one I should have even though it's the one that came downloaded with the computer and windows says its up to date. Troubleshooting also doesn't recognize the issue. I've left streamlabs running on a bandwith test key with no audio or video running to test how bad this is, and on 30fps about 10-12% of frames are dropped right now, so it seems like a 1-2 second issue every 20 seconds or so. I appreciate the help and hope this provides more information.

 

[bill001g]

Open a cmd window and let a constant ping run to your router IP. The goal here is to see if you are actually have the wifi connection drop or if it might be the internet connection. You could also try a ethernet cable and see if you have problems. If you still have problems on ethernet you suspect a issue with the ISP.

Since you do not see messages it does not sound like the device is actually failing but it does not completely rule it out.

With wifi you have very few options. Most wifi problems are related to interference from neighbors and there really is no solution for that. The first thing to try is to use 2.4 or 5 radio. The 2.4 will likely be a little slower but it tends to get stronger signals in many houses. If that does not help you can try to change the radio channel. This is done on the router. You can also set the radio channel width to 20mhz. This will greatly reduce the speed but it also give you more choices in what channels you select. On 2.4g you try 1,6,11 on 5g there are around 9 in most countries you can try when you have it set to 20mhz. This is purely trial and error and unfortunately it may work and a neighbor come home from work start using his wifi and break it again.

If you can't make it work you start considering non wifi ways to conenct, Ethernet is best but you can consider moca and powerline,

 

[StratBecker]

Open a cmd window and let a constant ping run to your router IP. The goal here is to see if you are actually have the wifi connection drop or if it might be the internet connection. You could also try a ethernet cable and see if you have problems. If you still have problems on ethernet you suspect a issue with the ISP.

Since you do not see messages it does not sound like the device is actually failing but it does not completely rule it out.

With wifi you have very few options. Most wifi problems are related to interference from neighbors and there really is no solution for that. The first thing to try is to use 2.4 or 5 radio. The 2.4 will likely be a little slower but it tends to get stronger signals in many houses. If that does not help you can try to change the radio channel. This is done on the router. You can also set the radio channel width to 20mhz. This will greatly reduce the speed but it also give you more choices in what channels you select. On 2.4g you try 1,6,11 on 5g there are around 9 in most countries you can try when you have it set to 20mhz. This is purely trial and error and unfortunately it may work and a neighbor come home from work start using his wifi and break it again.

If you can't make it work you start considering non wifi ways to conenct, Ethernet is best but you can consider moca and powerline,

Hi and thanks for the tip. I opened a cmd window and ran a constant ping. What I saw was interesting. Virtually all responses were 3-5ms each, but approximately every 33-25 seconds it would take almost exactly 2800ms to get a ping back. I would want to attempt an ethernet cable but the pc is located 50 feet or so from the modem and the modem isn't located in a place a pc and monitor can be put near. I'm calling my computer provider to make sure it's not hardware/software but looks like i'm going to have to bite the bullet and get a modem/plan for the next 2 months just for this pc.

 

[bill001g]

It will be much cheaper to buy powerline network device than pay a extra monthly fee. You want to look for units based on av2 link av2-1000 oe av2-2000. If you have coax tv cable you can look at moca units. You can get device than can run full gigabit speeds.

 

[StratBecker]

It will be much cheaper to buy powerline network device than pay a extra monthly fee. You want to look for units based on av2 link av2-1000 oe av2-2000. If you have coax tv cable you can look at moca units. You can get device than can run full gigabit speeds.

This is going to sound really dumb but I found the problem. I forgot to attach the antenna to the PC when I set it up. I'm so sorry for having wasted anyone's time