Occasionl WiFi issue

[14Accent]

Hi everyone-

The system in question is an HP Elitebook 8730W, and I must say even though she's an old girl I absolutely LOVE this laptop. It performs flawlessly, and was helped mightily by the addition of an SSD about a year ago.

Anyways, here's the issue! Every once in a while, the WiFi refuses to connect. To any network. I open the lid, hit power, and the unit comes out of Hibernation (I almost never "shut it down"). Upon logging in to Windows, the WiFi icon in the task bar shows as active, but not connected. Pulling up the network list shows all networks in my area, including mine, but it will not connect to any of them. The only way to rectify the lock is by going in to Device Manager, going to the WiFi card, and disabling/enabling the card manually. Then all is fine. Sometimes, it does this once a day. Sometimes, once a week.

The card is the built-in Intel 5300. I have no other issues with connectivity other than this seemingly random issue. Has anyone run into this one before?

 

[Imp4]

Hmm.... Intermittent electrical issue?!?

Can you just replace the WiFi card???

 

[OVERKILL]

Have you run HP Softpaq Download Manager on it to ensure you have the latest drivers for the device from HP? That can be a big help.

 

[DzoG20]

I have the same issue with WIFI reconnecting after hibernation on a completely different laptop.
Should be windows related as it started happening recently, I have the laptop for a while.

 

[wkcars]

Maybe check the power settings and see if the computer is turning off the wifi adapter to save energy.

 

[Chris142]

Are you using a cone to center the wheel or the lugnut holes? Back in my tire days .25 was not enough to worry about.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by Chris142
Are you using a cone to center the wheel or the lugnut holes? Back in my tire days .25 was not enough to worry about.

Right, so that's probably not the source of his Wi-Fi issues.

 

[Nick1994]

Command Prompt: netsh winsock reset

Fixes a lot of network issues I've experienced as an IT Help Desk Tech.

 

[StevieC]

It's usually driver or service related. Had the problem here/there on various versions of windows both from sleep / hibernation.

Sometimes disabling fast-boot in the power management settings and then rebooting once might fix the problem. The issue could be that it just keeps the state of the driver in it's quick-boot memory between boot-ups so it never gets a chance to fully refresh as it would with turning fast-boot off. I always do this so when I do reboot or power down (outside of sleeping / hibernating) I get a fresh full boot and no remnants of previous boots.

Here is how to change that... (You may have to click on the text that says "Click to change settings that are currently unavailable" by the shield icon if you don't have this option or it's grayed out initially

 

[14Accent]

Originally Posted by Nick1994
Command Prompt: netsh winsock reset

Fixes a lot of network issues I've experienced as an IT Help Desk Tech.


Thank you for the suggestion. I'll try this first chance. However, it doesn't seem to me like a hardware problem. The WiFi card obviously wakes up when the PC does because it can see all current networks. It just refuses to connect.

Is there any diagnostics I can do when the situation occurs that could help?

 

[rubberchicken]

BIOS / Firmware updates- make sure it has the latest Softpaq.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Are you operating in latest edition of Windows 10 and the latest Network Settings available?
If you are, then call your Ethernet.WIFI provider to have your modem checked against your Settings.

I had the same problem and changing the modem with built-in router -then changing a few Network-related settings on my computer - all done by my Ethernet/WIFI service tech, fixed it.

Works like a charm now.