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One bar makes all the difference

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Fenrakk101

With the Steam forums down and the Amplitude forums hostage to spam attacks this is really the only active gamer-centric community I'm active in so now I come to you seeking aid that Google could not provide.

My laptop (Alienware M14XR2) has serious issues holding a wifi signal. It's not the signal's problem. We've recently upgraded the router and a cheap laptop and a 360 ten feet further away and through a wall have a perfect connection. The laptop generally has a five-bar connection, but randomly drops down to four bars, which despite being four out of five bars will inevitably disconnect me from Steam, make pages take ten minutes to load, cause youtube videos to return errors, etc. The worst part about it is, anytime I play any game, I can basically guarantee I'll drop down to four bars - and that alone will make games of Killing Floor impossible. The most frustrating thing about it is that it only started happening recently; as soon as a week ago I could have beautiful connections to random servers in Killing Floor for hours on end.

So, does anyone here know of anything I can do to improve/troubleshoot my laptop's connection connection? Restarting the router seems to solve the problem for at least a little while, and restarting the laptop does jack shit. It just feels like it's getting worse as time goes on.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION (to be added as I remember):
*I have a static IP set up.

12 years ago*

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4 Comments
garry737

I have a Alienware M17x Laptop, I dont seem to have that problem

12 years ago
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Fenrakk101

Like I said, it only started happening recently. I've had this laptop for over a year now. I've already had to replace the hard drive and even the battery seems to be glitching out, but I'm not sure whether the connection issues are a hardware/software problem. Maybe it has more to do with overheating than with anything else, for all I know (though I doubt it).

12 years ago
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nightwolf

Well, based on no information at all...

  • Could be related to interference from something near your laptop. Think microwave, cordless phone, or cheap wireless mouse/keyboard (the last one is less likely, since the router would be stronger).
  • Could be your DNS settings on this computer. Try using 8.8.8.8 (google dns) or 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS).
12 years ago
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Fenrakk101

-When the microwave is on I drop down to 1 bar, so it's not that. The keyboards in this house are all built-in, being laptops, and I have the only mouse which is wired. Cell phones are a definite possibility, I usually have mine at all times but I'll try moving it further away and seeing if that helps.

-I meant to mention (and subsequently forgot) that I have a static IP set up. Not sure if that makes a difference.

12 years ago
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Closed 12 years ago by Fenrakk101.