Realtek RTL8821CE Wi-Fi Adapter

[Manny-Tech]

Hi

 

We have a number of HP 255 G7 laptops fitted with the Realtek adapters. We've been having major problems with teachers using Teams for meetings and how 'glitchy' it is. Loss of video and speech is very common or even very sporadic. We've eventually narrowed it down to these model of laptops and in particular these Wi-Fi adapters. I have actually swapped out the adapter for a Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4A and this has improved performance massively to the point where the problems disappear.

 

My question is;

1. Anyone come up against similar problems with this network adapter?

2. The Realtek only uses one antenna, the Atheros I put in temporarily uses two with the main and aux labelled on the wi-fi adapter itself. Should I just get the Atheros adapter or am I going to run into problems when I haven't got two antennas? Or do I look for a combo wi-fi and bluetooth adapter that only utilises one antenna cable like the one I've taken out? Any recommendations?

[CHiLL]

We have a fair amount of these laptops, provided to staff and I've probably only come across one issue with regards to Wi-Fi, but it's not Teams related. One member of staff has issues connecting via our VPN when at home, on both his EE home broadband connection and his partner's EE home broadband connection, where the connection will just drop out or fail to connect. When in school on our backup Wi-Fi, it seems to be fine. So I just put it down to an issue with EE.

[Manny-Tech]

Very odd. I don't suppose you would mind sharing which driver version you're using and what you have set in advanced options of the driver?

[Gdog]

We've had massive problems with that Card in a different model of HP laptop and Teams glitching, Weirdly it was linked to Smart notebook been open in the background. We also swapped for an Atheros and just connected Main antenna cable and all the problems went away!

[MatthewL]

Had issues with WiFi on devices be about 10 years ago when we first implements corporate style WiFi, drivers were massive issue and some required firmware, the other think we did to was tweak the options for the WiFi card and increase its power settings and roaming aggressiveness type settings, which sorted most of it out. Can't remember what settings exactly were tweaked as it was such long time ago but I know Intel and Broadcom were the devices.

[CHiLL]

Very odd. I don't suppose you would mind sharing which driver version you're using and what you have set in advanced options of the driver?

We haven't updated the driver or made any modifications to the advanced settings. The driver on the laptop I just checked is:

DeviceName: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Adapter

DriverVersion: 2023.79.619.2018

[Manny-Tech]

We've had massive problems with that Card in a different model of HP laptop and Teams glitching, Weirdly it was linked to Smart notebook been open in the background. We also swapped for an Atheros and just connected Main antenna cable and all the problems went away!

 

Very interesting. How did you even narrow it down to Smart? We too use Smart. Which Atheros device did you go for in the end?

[Gdog]

Can't remember model, we took them out of some old Lenovo's we had lying around.

 

We narrowed it down by watching pings to the server. Without smart they were sitting around 2-3ms as soon as smart is open literally every 7 seconds was jumping to 2700ms. close it again goes back to normal pings and teams live lessons start behaving again. Wondered if it was something in smart being blocked on filtering in school but could replicate on Home wifi and tethering too. Really odd that it should do that. I had a niggly feeling smart was involved when we first had these problems. Its always the first place i look for any PC problems due to previous experiences with it.

[the_quick]

We had this problem years ago and had to buy loads of Wifi cards and swap them, cant remember what was the exact card. But the problem was that chip on the card was causing a connection problem. Cost us £20 extra per laptop. Surprise this is still happening

[Manny-Tech]

Can't remember model, we took them out of some old Lenovo's we had lying around.

 

We narrowed it down by watching pings to the server. Without smart they were sitting around 2-3ms as soon as smart is open literally every 7 seconds was jumping to 2700ms. close it again goes back to normal pings and teams live lessons start behaving again. Wondered if it was something in smart being blocked on filtering in school but could replicate on Home wifi and tethering too. Really odd that it should do that. I had a niggly feeling smart was involved when we first had these problems. Its always the first place i look for any PC problems due to previous experiences with it.

I will check the whole Smart notebook scenario. Sounds very ominous that this problem happens on one wi-fi adapter but not another. Thanks for steering me in that direction though!

[gmonks]

Got several brand new HP Laptops with these Wi-Fi adapters and the Wi-Fi keeps dropping out. Has anybody found a stable driver / advanced settings that worked? Edited March 23, 2021 by gmonks

[Manny-Tech]

I replaced the network cards inside of a few of our laptops - very irritating problem though. I've tampered with all sorts of advanced settings to no avail.

[maxrebo]

I replaced the network cards inside of a few of our laptops - very irritating problem though. I've tampered with all sorts of advanced settings to no avail.

 

Any advice on a suitable\better WIFI card?

[Manny-Tech]

I went with the Intel AX200.