Wifi connection mystery

April 29, 2022 1:03 PM

A laptop PC (Windows 10 Home, updated probably before the last new year) is trying to connect to wifi. The building is full of dozens of different wifi networks, all of which are appearing intermittently on the network list of that PC except the one network it's allowed to use. The PC is sitting right across from the router for that network, so it's not a matter of distance, and the network shows up fine on other connected devices, where it's working as usual. How do I tell the PC to connect?

(I feel like this is an obvious question, but I can't seem to find a place to input a way to force the PC to recognize the network. Thanks for your patience.)

posted by Countess Elena to Technology (6 answers total)

1) To add a network on Windows 10, click the network symbol in the task bar (usually in the lower-right, always near the date and time), then choose "Network & Internet Settings," then "Wi-Fi" in the pane on the left, then "Manage known networks" on the right, then "Add a new network."

2) Note that while this will add the network to the list of networks the device is supposed to be communicating with, if the wireless Access Point (AP) and the laptop are not configured in compatible ways (which is unlikely but possible), you still won't have connectivity between them.

3) To check the actual wireless adapter on the computer, go to "Hardware properties" in the "Wi-Fi" menu visited in part 1). It should have a part name under "Description:" that you can look up with a search engine. You want to make sure that the wireless adapter supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz (if you're in the US, these are the two parts of the RF spectrum where WiFi is allowed).

4) If you are able to do so, examine the AP's settings to see which channels/frequencies it's broadcasting on. If the AP is set to a 5GHz channel only and you have a 2.4GHz only laptop, the two devices can't communicate without either changing the AP settings or getting a different adapter.
posted by All Might Be Well at 1:37 PM on April 29, 2022

Personally, it's far more likely the laptop was configured for 5 GHz only (802.11ac) while the router was from an older generation and does not do 802.11ac. It runs on 802.11n.

But we'll need to know a bit more details about the router / AP and the laptop to rule that out.
posted by kschang at 3:16 PM on April 29, 2022

The wireless adapter is an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260, which came along in 2013 apparently. This is an older laptop, at least 2014. The router is a Spectrum Wifi 6 Router, and I see that it uses 802.11ax, which is a newer standard. Maybe that's the problem? I had added the network's name, but it didn't seem to help.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:49 PM on April 29, 2022

I have a similar Intel, the 3168. The 7260 mainly differs by having 2 mimo channels instead of 316x's just one.

The two should be quite compatible with each other if each were set to their default settings.
posted by kschang at 5:30 PM on April 29, 2022

Go to the Intel website and use the little wizard that you find there to update the WiFi drivers on your laptop.
posted by McNulty at 5:33 PM on April 29, 2022

I’ll have to check into this tomorrow but I will update then about what is working. I can surely use a phone as a hotspot to update the driver, or maybe scare up an Ethernet cord —
posted by Countess Elena at 5:59 PM on April 29, 2022