Windows 10: Wifi fine, but no internet - keeps happening

Hey, so the problem happened again today and i've got some more info for you.

The internet was working fine all day until about 3pm when all of a sudden, web pages stopped loading. The wifi panel said "connected, secured", but it clearly wasn't. I ran inSSIDer, "netsh wlan show all" and the network information batch file linked to by Neemobeer.

I don't pretend to know what all the data means, but what I could see in inSSIDer is that my router was on channel 6, with a score of 42-45. There were 6 co-channels and 0 overlapping and when I sorted by Signal, mine was usually top, or at least in the top 2, but as you can see on the graph below, occasionally there were huge, but brief signal drops. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but conceivably it could be enough to knock out the internet connection and force the PC to try to reconnect. The problem is it doesn't seem to be able to without a lot of cajoling it.





The next thing I tried was to reboot both routers and interestingly it came back onto channel 1, and then there were only 4 co-channels and 1 overlapping, this time with a slightly higher link score. I also tried moving the antenna up onto my desk, but it made no difference to the signal, an the internet still didn't reconnect.

Next I tried all the ipconfig and netsh things in CMD prompt and rebooted and this didn't work like it has done previously. After trying all that a 2nd time, I attempted to update the Broadcom 802.11ac network adapter driver. I downloaded one from driverscape onto my phone and copied it across via USB. I then tried to install it and it froze my whole PC. I had to do a cold reboot and then Windows wouldn't boot and I couldn't even get into the BIOS! Gah, what a day. Then after about 3 more attempts, I finally got back into Windows, and things were still not working. I then went to the ASUS website to see if they had drivers available and apparently I'm on the latest version according to their website.

So, now i'm completely stuck with an offline PC at work, so I've ordered a 10m ethernet cable and I'm going to take my laptop in tomorrow and work on that until the cable arrives, but I'd really like to get to the bottom of this!

For your reading pleasure, I have attached text files showing the readouts of the batch process and the netsh wlan show all command.

Looking forward to any help you can give!

Thanks, Mark

 

Oh, P.S. one more thing: Often when I restart, I'll get it saying it's connected and a FEW things will work for a minute or two. For example, Dropbox and Google Drive will sync up and I'll be able to load Google in an Incognito browser window, or I'll open Gmail and Google Hangouts will send and receive a couple of messages but as soon as I go to load any other "normal" (i.e. not previously cached) pages, it will just hang, and eventually Dropbox and G Drive will say they cannot connect. I find this very weird.

 

Is that BTWifi the public hotspot that BT enables on their gear? I am surprised that you cannot use 5GHz. I would set it for Channel 3. If you can set two channels, that will also increase your speed and also help when those units that are below -60 are causing your gateway to try and fight their signal.

The best thing to do if you are picking up strong signals from the neighbors, is do a walk around with an android tablet to find out where those other access points are in relation to your A/P.

 

To be honest, I don't know anything about the configuration of the router or how to make changes to it. I'm renting a desk in the office of a husband and wife couple, so I will have to ask them to make the changes and possibly change their setup too. The husband uses a wired connection and the wife brings in her laptop but they only come in 2 days per week so they don't experience the issues I'm having.

Are you still adamant that my issues are purely related to wifi signal strength and no other problem with the network adapter, drivers or Windows itself? You don't seem to have addressed those concerns of mine and keep focusing on the wifi signal strength. Did you look at all the files I uploaded? What can be concluded from that?

I have an ethernet cable arriving today so if there's no further advice I may just go to wired and be done with all this hassle.

 

A lot of Wireless-n radios. That link I posted has the setup manuals. Personally I like that if you do a setup like I did. It makes it easier to grow out the network and also keep the business side behind what is called an "Edge Router". It is placing a router on DMZ Plus or how BT states to place a router behind the equipment they provide. You can then do more than their equipment firmware that is limited can do.

If the business owners are willing to sit down and make it so that all users on the network are getting proper speeds, no one user can hog the bandwidth on the network, they can also separate their equipment on a VLAN and same for the users to make sure that they do not see all computers on the network that they should not.

I have read a lot of posts, searched through a lot of material, learned by just diving in when I moved up to the Cisco RV-320 VPN/Firewall that I have now. Keeping it simple is good, but if you are on a office network and you have to or need to keep your files private, then it is something that you would need to do.

The whole reason why I finally moved up to the equipment I have. Was for the Wifi power on the Access Point I am using and having the ability to have router that was more robust when it came to features that can be used if needed and also I can go in and restrict users MAC's, unlike the AT&T U-Verse Gateway which does not have that option.

 

bro67, i'm sure you're trying to be helpful but you really are speaking a totally foreign language to me. I am a lone freelancer working in the office of a husband and wife couple. We are one "suite" in an office of many units so the other networks you see are other businesses in the next door rooms, but in our room, there are only three of us sharing a BT fibre connection and it is rare that there are even 3 of us there at once. Mostly it's just me. So...I don't think we'll be trying to get complex with the equipment, nor should we need to.

I have a further update: I went in on Friday with my Dell XPS laptop running Windows 10 and an Ethernet cable. The laptop connected to the internet fine all day. I ran inSSIDer on the laptop and got pretty much the same data as I did on the desktop.

On the desktop, there was still wifi but no internet when I booted it up. I then plugged in the Ethernet cable and windows recognised it but said there was no internet still. I ran through all the suggestions that Microsoft gave for this scenario on this page. None of them worked, so I tried the last resort: Network Reset. Doing this basically crashed my PC and after that it wouldn't boot, so much so that I ended up having to create a Windows recovery drive via my laptop and use it to repair Windows on the desktop. Once the repair completed, lo and behold, my internet came back online and everything was fine for several hours afterwards.

Do you STILL think it's a wifi signal problem? I don't! I'm not really sure what it was, but at least it's working again and if I have future problems, then at least I now have an ethernet cable as a backup.

Anyway, despite the above, thanks for doing your best to help.

 

Basically you need to work with the person who you are renting from and BT to figure out why. Most likely they need an external Access Point in the office, instead of trying to use the wifi off of the Gateway that may be buried in a closet somewhere or under a desk.

You should use Ethernet if you are working in that office, so that no one can sniff your packets over Wifi. Wifi is good if you use the proper security, but renting an office and not knowing how secure it is, along with the wifi issues, tells me that there is a problem with the setup.

The info I posted is not a foreign language. It is very valuable information to know when you are looking at the big picture in how it is setup now and how it should be setup to assure the users that they are secure and no one can be on their part of the LAN. It gets a little more difficult to explain the next step about Captive Portals, which are used at Starbucks and other places that you have to either enter a username and password or click ok to accept the authority to be on the network.

Just make sure that you keep your laptop locked down and placed on public wifi when not on your home network.

 

From the text dump I don't see any layer 2 or 3 problems. From the InSSIDer capture I'd say the other strong signals above -70dbs are probably causing the problem. If you are limited to the 2.4Ghz band, you can log into the router (open a browser and type in the 192.168.1.254) if the login is the default you should be able google for the default or it may be listed on the router. Change to channel 11. If you can go to the 5Ghz band (if the router supports it) then I'd do that since there is less channel overlap.

 

Neemobeer, thanks for that. If the problem continues, I will try that.

bro67, I hear what you're saying about being secure etc. and if I was in a larger office with people I don't know, then i'd agree with you, but I am on good terms with the two people I rent from and they have no interest spying on me or anything, so the only risk is people in other offices surrounding mine, but that is no different from working from home and having neighbours around. I'm not paranoid about security, I just want reliable internet so I can get on with earning money. If my problem has not been solved by my Windows repair then I will either do what Neembeer says, or I'll just use Ethernet and hopefully that will be the end of it.

Thanks all for your help! I won't mark this as solved yet as its too early to tell, but let's hope!

 

Not so much them. Other users on the network is what you have to worry about, even if they have put in safeguards to check what users are doing, so that the owners do not end up getting their service shut down or have someone hogging all of the bandwidth downloading torrents and uploading them, or even large PDF's, which we did in an office unit that I worked in that every user was having to download and upload large Court records and financials in those files that we had imaged or are putting in the data on the sections for the Document Management System. 20 users can kill a T1 to the point that it runs at 300 baud.

Even if you just want to keep up on this stuff and what the White Hats and Black hats have found, it is good information for you to have, so that you are protecting your investment that you put into your job and making sure that your files are secure, even when home.