Windows 10: Windows 10 intermittently dropping wireless 5ghz

Hello,

I have a Netgear N600 dual band wireless router at home. On my PC I'm using a Belkin N600 dual band USB adapter for wireless internet.

As you know, my router broadcasts both a 2.4g and 5g connection; I'll refer to them as NETGEAR and NETGEAR-5G. I recently had to upgrade to Windows 10 Home from Windows 7 Ultimate, and this is when my issue began. My list of available wireless networks will include both of them, and I prefer connecting to NETGEAR-5G. I will typically stay connected for an average of 10-15 minutes, when my connection suddenly drops.

When this happens, the NETGEAR-5G network, as well as a few others, are no longer listed and do not show up when I search for nearby networks. My regular NETGEAR connection is always available and within range. After some time, the NETGEAR-5G network will appear again, and I can connect to it without issue, until it is dropped again.

My router is in a good and unobstructed position and I receive a strong signal when I can connect. I've looked around online and tried various solutions; turning off network sharing and making sure Windows cannot shut off the device after a certain amount of time. I saw a suggestion to go into the Device Manager, go to advanced properties under my network adapter, and change the "Band" setting to 5G only, but that is not an available option for my adapter. I've updated all of my drivers as well.

I have other devices that connect and stay connected to the 5G network without issue, and as I mentioned, this was never an issue when I was using Windows 7. Given all of this, I believe the issue is with a setting in Windows 10 and not with any hardware.

If any one can offer any insight or possible solutions I'd be grateful, and I can provide any additional information if needed. I'm prepared to accept I just need to get a new adapter, but I'd like to try and solve this before it comes to that. I'd also be worried I'd experience the same issues with a new adapter as I am with this one.

Thanks!

:)

 

Wireless network drops intermittently, needs reset to reconnect

From my previous detailed comment (Wireless network drops intermittently, needs reset to reconnect - Page 4 - Windows 10 Forums), you might surmise that the problem isn't with the wifi adapter or router.

Also because this laptop is the only one that is behaving this way. Other Windows 7 and Mac laptops and smartphones connected to the same network are fine.

 

Wireless network drops intermittently, needs reset to reconnect

then through that laptop out the window, thank me later

 

Wireless network drops intermittently, needs reset to reconnect


I noticed a strange (puzzling!) but extremely interesting phenomenon during a video conference call this morning.

• The network dropped as usual, at some time during the video call.
• But the video call using Zoom.us, *did not drop!*. That's right - the 1 hour of network down time did not affect the Zoom.us video call at at.
• But other services, specifically, web browser-based services reported no network. I all my browsers - Chrome, Edge, FF - I could not connect to any websites. Also, I have "pseudo-web apps" running, such as WhatsApp's desktop app (which seems to be a shell around a browser), all of which seemed unable to connect. Google Hangouts could not connect either.
• Weirdly, another collaboration desktop app that I used - Slack - was able to *partially connect!*. That is, I was able to send and receive messages on Slack while the network was out for the hour, but Slack *still* reported no network connection (weird!).

It leads me to believe (and I could be wrong), that *some* parts of the network seem to go down and not come back up until they wireless connection is reset. Maybe some ports, like 80/8080/465/587/110/... are being shut down?

Any ideas?