Only 1 laptop having issues connecting to the internet....

I bought a new Samsung Laptop at the beginning of March and after about 2 weeks, I started to see a really weird problem. My computer would boot up...internet would work fine for 5 minutes...then a caution symbol would show up over the internet "bars" in the lower right hand corner. Mean while, none of the other 5 laptops in the household are having a problem.

To make things even weirder, when I bring my new laptop to my friends houses... the laptop works perfectly on the internet. Then I'll come home 15 minutes later and my internet stops working after 5 minutes, sometimes it doesn't work at all.

I have no idea what the hell is going on? If the other laptops are not having problems..then it can't be my home router?

**I thought I had some type of virus that was doing this, so I restored my computer to how it was when I first opened the box...having the same damn problem.

Somebody please help me! This is driving me crazy, and I can't bring it back because the 30 day return policy just ended.

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Comments

erpadmin

YuckTheFankees wrote: »

I bought a new Samsung Laptop at the beginning of March and after about 2 weeks, I started to see a really weird problem. My computer would boot up...internet would work fine for 5 minutes...then a caution symbol would show up over the internet "bars" in the lower right hand corner. Mean while, none of the other 5 laptops in the household are having a problem.

To make things even weirder, when I bring my new laptop to my friends houses... the laptop works perfectly on the internet. Then I'll come home 15 minutes later and my internet stops working after 5 minutes, sometimes it doesn't work at all.

I have no idea what the hell is going on? If the other laptops are not having problems..then it can't be my home router?

**I thought I had some type of virus that was doing this, so I restored my computer to how it was when I first opened the box...having the same damn problem.

Somebody please help me! This is driving me crazy, and I can't bring it back because the 30 day return policy just ended.

On your home router, do you have MAC Access Control enabled? If so, you might want to add your new laptop's WIFI MAC address to the router.

YuckTheFankees

If that was the problem, it wouldn't allow my laptop on at all..right? My laptop is able to connect for a short time and then it starts to have problems.

**I'm sorry but I forgot to mention it's having this weird problem only with WiFi. The internet works perfectly when I plug in an Ethernet cable.

Essendon

Definitely some kind of restriction configured on your WiFi router then. What model have you got? Have you had a look at what ERP said, there's got to be some kind of setting somewhere.

Essendon

It could be that your laptop is turning off the connection. If you go to control panel - network connections - right click on the wireless connection and choose properties. Click on the Configure button - under "Power Management" there could a tick in a box beside the comment "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". Uncheck and see how you go.

mattlee09

I suppose since it works fine at your friends house it isn't a problem with the machine or OS, but you might load Ubuntu or something else on that laptop to verify. I suspect with another OS, it'll drop you as well, and that the problem is with your router (somehow/way/where).

Factory reset your router to default, and try the laptop wireless again. If/when it works, add things back onto the router config (security, etc.), testing after each change.

Definitely a strange thing though, keep us updated.

Edit -

Reading back up I see you factory restored the laptop. That makes my troubleshooting of loading Ubuntu monotonous. Still could start with resetting the router though.

Asif Dasl

Best thing to do is, go in to Command Prompt and do a ping to your router IP or 8.8.8.8 ( ping x.x.x.x -t ) and leave it for 10-15 mins, do this with wired & wireless connections and maybe even do it overnight... rule out a faulty NIC. You could change the properties of the Command Prompt window, the screen buffer in particular (to 9999) so you can scroll up to see any disconnects that happen in that time but that's not absolutely necessary cause you will get a little report when you do a CTRL+C to end it.

Other option is to change the Alternative IP Address setting in Networking & Sharing Center. Does the same disconnect happen? Sounds like a driver or hardware fault cause the other computers can get on the Internet fine - that little caution icon comes up when you can't reach the Internet, not only when you don't have an IP address.

Dunno what warranties are like in the US, here we have a 12 month manufacturer warranty by default - if it's faulty then you should be able to get a repair.

CodeBlox

I would restore the wireless router to it's default settings first.

dustinmurphy

I agree with all that has been said, and would like to add... check the firmware on the router to see if it needs an upgrade. There may be some incompatibility that your "new" laptop has with your router that a firmware upgrade would fix...

the_Grinch

Turn off your wireless encryption and see if you still lose your connection. I had an issue with a Vista laptop and wireless encryption before.

networker050184

dustinmurphy wrote: »

I agree with all that has been said, and would like to add... check the firmware on the router to see if it needs an upgrade. There may be some incompatibility that your "new" laptop has with your router that a firmware upgrade would fix...

My thoughts as well. If its newer than your older laptops you may be running into some compatibility issue that can possibly be fixed with a firmware upgrade.

YuckTheFankees

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I've been a little busy. So last night I was trying to mess around with the laptop because it was still acting up AGAIN. After 30 minutes of the internet going off and on, I received a new error message "IP conflict". So I opened up the command line and typed "ipconfig/release, then ipconfig/renew"..and so far it hasn't been acting up. I wonder why it didn't display that error before? The issue has been going on for 2-3 weeks.

the_Grinch

Now you have to figure out why there was a conflict. If I were to venture a guess, I'd say that perhaps you traveled somewhere and the laptop retained the ip which just so happened to belong to something else on your network. Isn't networking fun?

Asif Dasl

Yes DHCP is not working right on your router by the sounds of it, or your NIC is not picking up DHCP (which could possible be a driver issue). Have you flashed the router yet? Maybe even change to a different IP range?

pizzaboy

Have you checked out the wireless drivers the laptop is using? I know it connects fine to other places but the fact that the other laptops in the house connect fine suggest to me that it may lie with the wireless drivers on the laptop.