Question Wifi card stops working periodically. Growing worse.

[hondoman]

Right then,

the desktop PC I keep in my workshop has a PCIe TP-Link Wi-Fi 6 AX200 for Wifi / Bluetooth. My Mainboard is a Gigabyte A320M, with a Ryzen 5 2600X. The system is about three year old.

I have a Fritz!box Router and my ISP is 1&1 (I live in Germany so these might not be known to Americans or Brits).

At first all worked well. No issues with connectivity. The router is about 5 metres away from the PC. The PC is on a table next to me away from a dusty floor, but I have a compressor near by to blow what wee dust there is out from time-to-time.

To the matter at hand. About a year ago, I came into the shop as I do each day and booted up the PC. The Wifi symbol in the system tray was out (showed the dead globe). I opened the case, took and and reseated the Wifi / Bluetooth card, closed the case, booted the PC again and all was well.

Since then it has happened periodically (once every 4 months or so). During the past month, however, it is happening much more frequently. Every 3-4 days perhaps. All drivers are up to date. No issues with the router. I know this as my home PC and mobile use it as well and they show no signs of loss connectivity.

I understand the system is getting a little old and perhaps tired, but could that truly be it?

It happened again this morning - an hour ago - did all the normal steps and it's working. But until when? Thursday? Friday?

Thoughts or ideas?

Cheers!

 

[Lutfij]

Gigabyte A320M
Guigabyte have a number of A320 chipsetted motehrbaords in their portfolio. Can you help us narrow down your motherboard by mentioning the exact model for the board?

First thing I'd do is make sure you're on the latest BIOS version. If you have BIOS versions pending update, might want to mention what BIOS version you're on and perhaps we can help you moving forward.

As for the WiFi adapter, have you tried uninstalling the adapter's drivers, then manually reinstalling them with the latest version in an elevated command i.er, Right click installer>Run as Administrator?

+ When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model.

 

[bill001g]

Most wifi cards continue to function well beyond the time the technology is outdated. Many old 802.11b cards still would run if you could get a driver for them for the newer os.
Hard to say maybe you just got unlucky.

It is strange that physically removing the card makes any difference. If you were to completely power off the machine with the switch on the power supply it should more or less do the same thing. It is unlikely there is a physical connector issue.

At some point you just give up and try new hardware. Luckily wifi nic cards are rather inexpensive. Many are under $30. Although you likely won't use the new features I would buy wifi6e because there seems to be almost no difference in price and for strange reasons the older wifi6 cards can actually cost more. You want to look for "intel ax210" to get the newer chipset. Other chipset vendors for wifi6e are also very good and stable now days. What is strange on the pricing is even the newest wifi7 chipset are dropping to be barely above wifi6e. Note do not buy wifi7 unless you have windows 11 there are no official drivers for windows 10.