New Clevo P955ER, wifi keeps dropping, help!

I just received this laptop from Prostar a few days ago (second one...first one had screen issues), and it keeps randomly losing the wifi signal. I will usually reconnect quickly, but this still shouldn't be happening!?? It'll be perfectly stable sometimes for a couple of hours...then bam, loses the 5ghz connection completely! For reference, I have the Intel 9560 in this build.

I have tried EVERY solution I've seen online with this type of issue...from changing the Power Plan settings, the adapter power state settings, uninstalling and re-installing drivers....no luck :/

I KNOW it's not my router either, as the other laptop in the house never drops at all, on the same connection.

Anyone here know what I can do? Could it be a bad wifi card? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

You could check the wifi cables, though metal chassis will make it a little more angle dependant so is there a common theme like the microwave going on? How are the speeds during normal use, have you benchmarked it compared to the other notebook? What card/frequency is the other machine?

 

Well, I'm currently running a ping test to google servers on both laptops, both are on the same 5ghz connection...in the same room as my router. So far I haven't noticed any timed-out connections on either, but we'll see. The other laptop is using a different card though, the Killer 1525...it's about 3 years old lol. I haven't opened up the new laptop to check anything yet...but I'm about 3 seconds from just saying...**** it and taking out the new Intel card and replacing it with the older Killer card just to test that as well...

 

Never assume that. The newest machine in the house may need the newest firmware on the router while everything else is happily humming along with an older version. Don't skip checking the router in any wireless issue diagnosis.

 

^^^ yup. Also some customers have problems with their Killer card, others have problems with Intel - no matter which model from either manufacturer. Often, swapping Killer for Intel or vice versa solves the problem - some routers just don't like certain WiFi modules. I've seen the problem more with routers supplied by broadband contract, seems less prevalent of a problem with standalone routers, but still happens.

 

Although I appreciate the suggestions...one of the first things I do whenever I'm adding new devices to my network is to update the firmware for both my router and modem.

I let both my old laptop and this new one run a series of ping tests last night:

The first 3 hrs they were split, the Killer card laptop was on the same side of the house as the router, and the new Intel card laptop was in my office on the opposite side of the house. In this test, there were zero hiccups on the Killer car, but MANY with the new Intel card, and not just a string of timeouts, it was as if the access point was completely disrupted and re-connected a few times.

The next 3 hrs I switched the laptop positions...the Intel laptop was near the router and the Killer was now in my office. This test there were almost zero hiccups for BOTH cards. Save for one timeout ping reading on the Killer card, but the connection was never lost or had to re-connect.

Finally the last 3 hours they were both set up near the router...and again zero hiccups for both cards.

After this test I can only assume that the range of the Intel card is either significantly worse than the older Killer card...or it's just having to deal with more interference from the aluminum chassis of the newer laptop, who knows??!! But even that doesn't explain the complete loss of signal or could it?

 

There are windows in the chassis for the signal to go through, do you have the screen up or down?

 

Screen is up, I'm really at my wits end with this...I'm leaving today on a business trip and I'm seriously considering leaving this one behind and just taking my old laptop...even though it's about twice the weight lol.

 

Wifi is radio signals. You didn't mention that you tested to see what channels they were using, and it sounds like you don't know that many default to using the same one. Try seeing what else is broadcasting ion your area, and maybe your router will benefit from a different channel.

 

Is this the roaming and streaming mode in Intel WiFi cards doing its thing?..

 

Swap the cards and see if u get the same results in reverse, if you do, then it's likely that the P955ER has a bad antenna. Which at this point considering how bad the notebook is in general wouldnn't particulary suprise me.

 

Update: I believe I fixed the "issue"...

The day I got back from my trip I noticed that my old asus wifi repeater was still plugged up behind my bookshelf. I hadn't used it in years because I could never get it to work correctly, just forgot about it lol. Anyhoo...I removed it and haven't seen a disconnect yet (knock on wood). It's been a few days now, but I'm still wondering why the repeater would have caused issues with the new laptop and not the old one >.<

 

Could be the repeater has its own firmware, is it a dedicated one or a repurposed router?

 

A dedicated repeater, Asus EA-N66, and it was likely running old firmware yes. Interesting though...I haven't had a disconnect in 3 days, but I was curious, so I re-connected the repeater...sure enough, within an hour I had another disconnect.

 

Guessing it's related to the firmware on that, or the location has enough overlap with the base station that the computer's card was trying to connect to both.

 

It might be using the same channel and interfering with the one the notebook is trying to use.

 

Well...I spoke too soon. Wifi just started randomly dropping after only a couple of days of stable use.

This will be my last attempt to fix this annoyance before I send it back to Prostar, urgh! But - I need some help getting the bottom panel off of this model??!! I was able to get the old wifi card out of my older sager just fine, but after removing all the screws on the back of this P955ER...it doesn't budge...wth! Does it snap in place in certain areas? I don't want to start using the wedging tools unless I know where to start. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

There may be screws under the keyboard too

 

There are screws under the keyboard. You need to remove all the screws from the back, then push out the keyboard by poking something like a toothpick through the screw hole marked with a keyboard symbol. Then you'll find 4-5 screws under the keyboard that need to be removed.

You can check out the service manual for a slightly different model with the same chassis and disassembly procedure here: https://repo.palkeo.com/clevo-mirror/P955HQx/

FWIW, I had issues with the wifi on a P955ER too and what fixed it was rolling back to the 20.10.2.2 driver for the Intel wifi. I've had to roll back this driver on other machines before because Intel for some reason has a track record of poor QA on it, so I didn't think much of having to do this.