[22h2] Weird Wifi Issue

[Oaktech]

I've got 40 of these HP Elitebook 840-G5 in circulation.

 

I have maybe 3-4 who persistently have wifi connection issues. They were all completely fine on Windows 10 with the same hardware and wifi environment so I can only assume it's a windows 11 problem.

 

They disconnect from the Unifi wireless at random intervals and then refuse to reconnect - no networks found.

 

Sometimes a device will be fine for days, sometimes will disconnect multiple times in an hour.

 

Nothing done from within windows seems to fix the issue, but a restart always does.

 

All available drivers & Bios updated from device manufacturer website.

 

Swapped wifi card with another device and issue persists, reinstalled W11 and issue persists.

 

Nothing untoward in event logs that I can see?

 

Anyone got a clue?

[chazzy2501]

They're old now, could be that stressing them has revealed marginal hardware.

[Oaktech]

They're old now, could be that stressing them has revealed marginal hardware.

 

Maybe - but they need to keep working for another 2 years, budget says so!

[DalekSec]

Have you tried a linux distro to see if its a windows issue?

[Oaktech]

Have you tried a linux distro to see if its a windows issue?

 

Fair point... I expect I can do this off a live USB stick without disturbing the otherwise working windows instance, so I'll give that a go.

[robintech]

Some cheap USB Wi-Fi sticks might keep them going

[Oaktech]

Some cheap USB Wi-Fi sticks might keep them going

 

That's my last line of defence, but I'd rather not go there if I don't have to.

[chazzy2501]

I've been having issues similar to this on my hp 440 G7 laptops.. I've found an issue that may help... Some of my laptops have marginal wifi (I haven't looked into further).

 

I recently changed the Ubiquity WiFi to move clients to 5Ghz (if capable).. This is an issue for these marginal laptops, I got one and even in ideal conditions it was only connecting at 85mbp PHY on 2.4Ghz (but had a strong signal and was next to the AP) I could see that every 30 seconds or so the laptop would move to 5Ghz with almost no signal.. fail and go back to 2.4ghz and repeat.

 

I think the WiFi card has a fault or worse, the antenna leads going to the screen are damaged. The Windows 11 thing might be a coincidence. I've now reverted the Wi-Fi settings to not move capable clients to 5Ghz and the laptop is at least not loosing a connection every 30 seconds.

[Oaktech]

I've been having issues similar to this on my hp 440 G7 laptops.. I've found an issue that may help... Some of my laptops have marginal wifi (I haven't looked into further).

 

I recently changed the Ubiquity WiFi to move clients to 5Ghz (if capable).. This is an issue for these marginal laptops, I got one and even in ideal conditions it was only connecting at 85mbp PHY on 2.4Ghz (but had a strong signal and was next to the AP) I could see that every 30 seconds or so the laptop would move to 5Ghz with almost no signal.. fail and go back to 2.4ghz and repeat.

 

I think the WiFi card has a fault or worse, the antenna leads going to the screen are damaged. The Windows 11 thing might be a coincidence. I've now reverted the Wi-Fi settings to not move capable clients to 5Ghz and the laptop is at least not loosing a connection every 30 seconds.

 

Update on this...

 

Resetting our entire wireless estate overnight & updating it to latest firmware (it was only 1 version behind) and performing a network troubleshooter reset on the devices in question seems to have stopped it from happening. Fingers crossed.

[Dos_Box]

Update on this...

 

Resetting our entire wireless estate overnight & updating it to latest firmware (it was only 1 version behind) and performing a network troubleshooter reset on the devices in question seems to have stopped it from happening. Fingers crossed.

 

I had a similar issue at home with a new laptop on Windows 10 last year. Coming out of sleep it would drop the wifi and refuse to connect. Nothing I tried (and it was pretty much EVERYTHING!) worked. Once I updated the laptop to W11 the problem went away.

There is a lot on the net about Windows 10/11 having random wifi issues like this. I would end up disabling and re-enabling the laptop wifi as it was the only way I could get it to reconnect.

[SayLHP]

Might be this issue: https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCwe50033

 

9120AX AP: clients continuously disconnecting with more than 10 clients using MS TEAMS CS00012284308

 

Symptom: Win Laptop with disconnection when taking MS TEAMS meeting more than 10 clients under the same 9120 AP, TEAMS meeting will break, will get ping lost to gateway, the problem will recovered automatically or manually re-connect the SSID.

 

Conditions: Problem is seen with 9105/9115/9120 series access points (no other models), and with Intel Wi-Fi 6/6E adapters (AX2xx), with drivers prior to 22.200.2.1/22.220.0.4.

 

Workaround: In descending order of granularity:

1. On the client, go into DevMgr and in the "802.11n/ac/ax Wireless Mode" setting, set it to 802.11ac

2. On the affected WLANs, disable 11ax OFDMA upstream/downstream

3. On the controller, (Radio Configurations > High Throughput), disable 11ax

 

Further Problem Description: This problem is fixed in the Intel driver, versions 22.200.2.1 (22.200.2 bundle) / 22.220.0.4 (bundle 22.220.0) and above.

 

The drivers are available from:-

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/18231/intel-proset-wireless-software-and-drivers-for-it-admins.html (ZIP)

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19351/windows-10-and-windows-11-wi-fi-drivers-for-intel-wireless-adapters.html (EXE)

 

No MSI version of the current driver though.

[PCProbs]

I always power-cycle the relevant router/AP when there are intermittent drop-outs with wireless connections and wireless printers. More often that not the problem is solved.

 

As with pretty much all technology, nothing 100% all the time!

[sigma]

We had similar symptoms with Win10 on some Lenovo laptops with RealTek wireless. Updated drivers seemed to improve the situation for us. Lenovo had to go back to RealTek though as it was the drivers that Lenovo provided that were faulty.