[SOLVED] Why is my pc suddenly not able to get a strong wireless connection?

[bubbaaustee]

I've had this desktop for a bit over a month, and haven't had any internet related issues until just a couple of days ago. Now, whenever i'm connected over wireless, my little wifi icon only gets one to two bars, which equates to about a 0.6 megabits download speed. I have tried rebooting both my router, modem, and pc several times with no luck. I have also tried connecting the computer to my phones mobile hotspot, but I still experience the same issue.

However, if i connect to my phone and place my phone within like a foot of my computer, my connection gets strong again and everything works as it's supposed to. I have both a nintendo switch and a laptop that are connected to this same network, but neither of them are facing the same issue.

The computer in question has had some other issues that may be relevant. I recently had to take it to a repair shop and get a new PSU, motherboard, and video card put into it because the original PSU put out some bad voltage that fried those particular components.

The motherboard that they put in is a ASUS Prime z390-P, but the motherboard that was in it before I got the computer back and started having all these problems was a Gigabyte z390 UD. The problems have been happening ever since i got it back, so im thinking that maybe the new motherboard has worse onboard wireless or something, but I don't know enough about this stuff to make much of an educated guess. Here are all the relevant specs:

Router: Netgear Wireless Extreme Model: WNDRMACv2

Modem: Spectrum E31U2V1

Motherboard: ASUS Prime z390-P

PSU: Corsair RM 850x

WiFi Adapter: Honestly not 100% sure how to find out what i have for this. I'm pretty sure the motherboard just has onboard wireless, but i'm not really sure.

OS: Windows 10 Home

ISP: Spectrum Internet

There are three devices in total connected to the network, with my desktop being the only one having issues.

 

[bill001g]

Neither of those motherboards actually has on board wifi. Some kind of add on card has to be used in both cases. The newer machine supports m2 type cards but it depends if they moved the card from the old machine or not.

What you describe really is not some fixed computer all they basically did was sell you a new computer but kept the old case.

There really is no way to tell without looking in the machine what cards they used to provide the wifi. If they actually move the wifi card from the old machine then it should perform about the same.

There is not much you can really do. Most internal cards....ie not USB devices....put out maximum legal power so there is not a lot of difference in coverage or signal strength.

The main issue with internal cards is the antenna are mounted very close to the back to the case. All the metal in the case and boards in the computer tend to block lots of wifi signal. You want to first try to face the back of the case toward the router and see if you get any difference. After that you consider buying short antenna extension cables so you can mount the antenna on top of the case.

Now if could be something simple like a loose antenna or a cable between the WIfi module and the back of the case but PCI cards do not have cables it only applies to m2 installs.