Recently my laptop has been losing connection to the wifi. It occasionally comes back, then loses it again. No obvious pattern. Our router is a bit old and possibly shonky but the wife’s laptop and my android pad connect OK. I haven’t changed anything significant recently, other than the usual updates.

After a bit of googling I’ve tried the following:
Updated, reinstalled and rolled back wireless card drivers
Turned off the feature allowing windows to turn off the card to save power
Made sure I am on a different channel to the neighbours. They are on 1,6,7 and 11, I’ve tried a few options. Currently on 9.

Not sure what to try next. Any ideas?

Windows 7, Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 wireless adapter, decent spec (i5 8Gb ram)

now replace your router as that is usually the bit that breaks

Oh, and before anyone suggests it, I’ve turned it off and on, which makes little difference.

Have probs here with wifi and W7 on two hp laptops and intermittently one Samsung. Have to hardware them now. Everything else works fine iPhones/iPads/androids/tough books on XP just not any win7 machines that come out here.

Poss older router newer software conflict but I haven’t figured it out on the last 18months.

Hmmm, it won’t connect at all today. Toying with changing broadband so maybe i’ll tie that in with a new router

If all the other devices are connecting to the router OK, it’s either a compatibility problem with your wireless card and the router (but it should have always been problematic in this case), or the wireless card itself is dying. It sounds like you have done all the other sensible things to eliminate other causes.

I had an AR series wireless card in a laptop with similar issues. I swapped it out for another (I think it was Rarlink or Intel), and the problem went away.

If you can’t be bothered to swap the mini-PCI wireless card out, you could get a cheapy USB wifi dongle off Ebay. Disable the internal one and you’re good to go.

If you want to try a different mini-pci card, I have a few lying about that you can have if you like.

Are you using windows to control your wireless adapter or some piece of proprietary software? You might be using both which could cause issues.
Disable one if so.

Reset the router to factory settings and re-enter them all? + make sure it’s on the latest firmware.

I have to do that occasionally with an oldish Linksys of mine.

I had this with a computer at the shop – wasn’t the router as other computers were fine, wasn’t drivers or anything as I hadn’t changed any software (reinstalled anyway, of course), tried everything, then found the solution online.

You’ll laugh, but this seriously worked:

Go yank out the power cord, while the computer is on (if it’s a laptop, pull the battery).

Wait 5 minutes, plug back in, and see what happens.

No idea why, but it worked perfectly ever since. I think it’s the modern version of the 1″ drop.

Update your wifi driver.

Run W7’s diagnosis when disconnected to see if it picks up anything. Sometimes it just needs to reset the wifi which takes seconds.

After a bit of googling I’ve tried the following:
Updated, reinstalled and rolled back wireless card drivers
Turned off the feature allowing windows to turn off the card to save power
Made sure I am on a different channel to the neighbours. They are on 1,6,7 and 11, I’ve tried a few options. Currently on 9.

Not sure what to try next. Any ideas?

Check that the routers firmware is up to date, is it?

Go to the laptop manufacturers site and download the Wi-Fi drivers directly from them as the problem may have been caused by windows update (driver).

Uninstall the current drivers then re-install using the OEM drivers, turn everything off and back on.

Scratch that ^^

look here, see link at bottom of page.

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/17385-MODDED-ATHEROS-DRIVERS-TO-ENABLE-ALL-KNOWN-SETTINGS-8-0-279-x86-amp-x64-IMPROVES-PERFOR

A quick Google shows there are a lot of people experiencing dropouts with this adaptor.

Thanks all. Seems much happier with the modified drivers from dirtydog’s link. Seems people in sheds (or whatever the programming equivalent is) are better at writing drivers than the manufacturer. Nerds 1, big corporation 0