Connection drops on one laptop with either wifi or wired connection

[#1]

I have had this problem for months and have tried many 'fixes' that I have found on the web but nothing has worked.

Problem

When at home and from time to time, my connection to the internet will drop whether I'm on a wired connection or over wifi. This NEVER happens at work where I move around the building a lot and between wired and wireless modes. Neither does it haunt the rest of my family who also run Windows 10 on their laptops.

I have an HP Zbook and have had a support session with their technical team and they don't believe that it's the machine and have suggested that I ask you.

I have the latest drivers installed too.

Thankfully, when it drops all I need to do is disconnect and reconnect (e.g. disable and then enable wifi) and that fixes it for a while.

There is nothing obvious that triggers it to drop.

[#2]

Hey @Max_Headroom,

Thanks for getting in touch & letting us know.

It does sound like the issues is more down to the laptop that anything else - unless it occurs on other devices in your household? Are you using our router or another, if another can you confirm the make and model?

Thanks.

[#3]

Hello and thanks for responding. We are using a Plusnet router and it's a Hub One type.

[#4]

Hi @Max_Headroom,

Thanks for confirming this. I'll be honest, the problem you've described is quite unique and I'm struggling to guess what exactly would be the problem in this case. Are you absolutely certain that the laptop is experiencing this problem when at work? I ask as I would say it's a network adapter problem if not for this "This NEVER happens at work where I move around the building a lot and between wired and wireless modes". Do you have another router to hand that you could setup within the property to see if this makes any difference?

[#5]

Hi Alex, sadly don't have another router that I can try out. I can however confirm that I don't have the problem ever have the problem at work and it only happens here at home. There are 6 people in the house each with a laptop and there are a couple of tablets and a mix of iPhones and Android ones too. Interestingly one of the laptop users has just admitted that occasionally when he starts the device it won't get a connection and he has the cycle the wifi i.e. disconnect/re-connect to gain a connection.

What you may also find odd is that my device can show that it is dosconnected when it isn't. So whilst I have been typing this the icon in the tray has changed from the usual WiFi one to the disconnected one i.e. a globe with a stop sign in the bottom-right of it. But I can switch to a new tab and browse the internet and Outlook show that it is connected to Exchange. But...and here's the weirdness of it...if I start the 'Network Speed Test' that you can download from the Microsoft Store, it shows that I'm disconnected and won't proceed. 

And just to be crystal clear, I can force a Send & Receive in Outlook and it works and I can still browse the internet and do a CTRL Refresh on a page and it loads...but the Network Speed Test still insists that I'm disconnected.

Whilst I have not documented it and the following is therefore from memory rather than fact, I'm pretty sure that there have been occasions where both the Network Speed Test and Outlook shown no connection and won't work, but I can still work via a browser. It's like certain packet types are getting through but not others.

Here is a snap of the 'tray' where you can see that Windows thinks it's disconnected where it partially is and partially isn't:

[#6]

Hi Max.

Thanks for that additional information.

This might be a pain, but is there any way that you can test this with nothing else connected to the router's wifi for 24 hours?

I'm curious as to whether this might be either a DNS conflict or another device "forcing" the laptop off the router when it connects. There's no reason I can think of which would cause this (as the Hub One supports at least a dozen separate devices) but it's the only angle that makes sense at this stage - particularly with the router reboot fixing this in the short term (as it would reassign the connections to each device upon reboot).

Thanks

Dave

[#7]

Hi Dave, there are too many folk in the house that rely on the WiFi to make forcing them off the WiFi an option, especially at this time of year.

You mention "particularly with the router reboot fixing this in the short term". Are you suggesting that a router reboot is a fix and that I should try this when it next happens? I'm happy to try again but to be frank it has only been a short-term fix in the past.

I'm intrigued by the suggestion that another device could be causing it. I have mature offspring who come to come to stay from time to time and it's possible that the drop-outs collate with one of them being here but I can only speculate at the moment.

Are there any tests to do or logs that I could look at that might provide a clue?

[#8]

@Max_Headroom 

I don't have a fix for this but I've seen the Microsoft connection probe fail (and say you are not connected to the Internet) when you are quite a number of times.

This is the process:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4494446/an-internet-explorer-or-edge-window-opens-when-your...

This is also worth a read:

https://www.trishtech.com/2015/07/disable-active-internet-probing-ncsi-in-windows/

finally, checking you have a valid IP address and gateway by following the first instruction in this

https://www.howtogeek.com/168896/10-useful-windows-commands-you-should-know/

You should see a 192.168.x.x address and a gateway that matches the first 3 groups ( 192.168.x ).

[#9]

Hi Mark, and thanks for chipping in. 

I'm reticent to disable the Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI) as I would be concerned about losing some other capability and this machine is an important part of my livelihood. Frankly I'm happier disabling and enabling the WiFi when the problem happens than disabling NCSI and not being too sure what it might disrupt.

I ran ipconfig and noticed that whilst I don't have VMware actively running in the UI at the moment, it shows 2 network adapters of it's own i.e. 3 in total. It makes me wonder whether we are simply running out of connections on the router.

So my laptop is showing 3 network connections and my phone will take one (I guess it only takes one). So that's 4 connections just for me. Most folk in the house have two devices (phone & laptop) and we then have a gaming console and the TVs are sometimes connected to the WiFi too. At the moment the router is showing 14 live connections and Randall from Plusnet states that the Hub One can handle 20, so perhaps that's the problem.

[#10]

@Max_Headroom 

There will often be multiple adaptors shown on a laptop.

You will only see one with an IP address and connected.

My best guess is that what you are experiencing is some kind of WiFi driver issue. 

We have a laptop that has been plagued with WiFi issues since upgraded to Windows 10 (it is otherwise fine) and it seems that the WiFi chipset has a distinguished history of Windows 10 issue.

For various reasons doing a clean install is unattractive (and I don't think it will repay my inconvenience by fixing the issue) so I put up with it.

One thing to look at is turning off any kind of "power saving" setting for the WiFi (in control panel -> system -> device manager) on the "Advanced" tab.

[#11]

This may also be worth a read:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/wi-fi-problems-with-hp-zbook-17-g1.781691/

[#12]

Thanks for the link and whilst it looked like it might be helpful I didn't install the 17.12.0.4 driver mentioned in the posting for 2 reasons:

1. The thread is 4 years old and I'm running the 20.70.12.5 build of the driver, so I imagine that I already have the benefits of the earlier driver
2. My problem is not isolated to  wireless connections. I can be connected bu cable to the router and still get the symptoms I describe.

[#13]

@Max_Headroom 

I hadn't appreciated that it happened on both wired and wireless.

In that case, the next time it happens try the command window and ipconfig and note what it says, is it a 192.168.1.x IP address and a sensible gateway (192.168.1.254) ?

If not then do ipconfig /renew

This should get you an IP address from the router in the 192.168.1.x range and the gateway 192.168.1.254.

Next enter 192.168.1.254 in a browser and see if you get the Hub One log in screen.

Back to the command window

ping aol.com

That should resolve to 106.10.218.150 and respond with no lost packets and for me about 240ms round trip.

If it doesn't resolve try pinging 106.10.218.150 which is the same server but without the use of domain name resolution.

If the command window with AOL works and the IP address is OK then everything at the "network" level seems OK and we are looking at some sort of "Windows problem".

I would still look at power saving setting problems (perhaps on both adapters) but it's looking like going back to Mr HP for support sadly.

[#14]

Hi Mark, over the last few days it has been stable but this morning it has been bad again. Initially I could get any connection to the internet and had to re-boot the router. I am connected now and as mentioned in previous parts of this thread I have a partial connection. On this occasion I can browser the web and hence make this posting to the forum, but the tray icon shows 'No internet access' and Outlook won't connect to Exchange.

ipconfig give the following:

IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.<a number>  {I'm not sure that I should be disclosing this on a public forum}

Default Gateway: 192.168.1.254

Entering 'http://192.168.1.254/' in a browser does get me to the router's page.

Pinging aol.com worked with no lost packets but the I note that the address was 66.218.87.12 and not the 106.10.218.150 that you mention, but I suspect that is irrelevant, the key thing is that it works. I also tried pinging it with the IP address and that worked fine too.

It may be a red-herring but I note that one of my daughters came home last night so I'm beginning to suspect a device conflict.

Following on from the above I also tried an 'ipconfig /renew' just as a belt & braces thing and it made no difference.

Both the wireless and ethernet network adaptors have had their power management setting changed to NOT allow the computer to turn off the device to save power. 

For my own future record I found that the 'Realtek USB GbE Family Controller' had the 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' ticked so I have un-ticked this. I realise that it should have no bearing on my network issues but sometime these things are weirdly related.

[#15]

Hello Max

The 192.168.1.x address is perfectly safe to quote and (from memory) the "x" will probably be a bit over 100 (I think the hub one starts DHCP allocation at 100).

It would have been useful to run the tests before rebooting the router. Next time it breaks see if you can do that.

If your daughter's device has a fixed IP address (unlikely but might have been set to overcome some previous problem) it would be worth undoing that or at least setting it high in the address range (192.168.1.200 plus I would suggest)

You may find that your removal of the power saving setting at least helps.

The computer indicating it is not on the Internet suggests that the Microsoft "probe" has failed for some reason and the

Outlook failing to work means that the exchange server is not contactable.

If you know the exchange server name and IP address, while it's not working ping both of those (don't put the names or IP addresses on this forum).

If my theory is correct the ping to the exchange server will fail.

If so try tracert

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/314868/how-to-use-tracert-to-troubleshoot-tcp-ip-problems-i...

I would be interested to know where the connection fails (at the first hop or elsewhere).

First do AOL (which should work) and for me goes router -> my PlusNet public IP address -> a few hops seemingly within PlusNet -> peer7-et-7-0-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net - (which I think is leaving the PlusNet/BT infrastructure) -> various servers with names associated with Yahoo (who are owned by the same people as AOL).

For me it takes 17ms which suggests that the server that is responding to the ping is "close" (in network terms) to Telehouse as it is 14ms to the peer7 router.

See what you get for your exchange server while it won't work to Outlook.