new laptop keeps bringing down our network

what nic is in the laptop? i've had problems with ralink cards lately

@Hubtech said:

what nic is in the laptop? i've had problems with ralink cards lately

also what is your wifi security encryption? WEP? WPA2?

Dominica

it's a Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11 b/g/n

and WPA2

@Dominica said:

it's a Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11 b/g/n

and WPA2

and you guys have a ubiquiti AP right? what band is it running on? try limiting it to B or G or N and see if anything changes.

Dominica

Yes, Ubiquiti. I'm not sure of the passwords and such, so going to have to wait until Scott gets home for that.

Malware scan came up clean.

it's not gonna be malware IMO. do you guys use dhcp or static ip addresses on your devices? could be some sort of weird ip conflict as well.

Dominica

I'm pretty sure everything is DHCP, although now I'm wondering about the Netgear toaster. It's most noticeable when the kids are streaming something on the WiiU and I click on a link on my laptop and bam, there goes everybody's connection. I don't think anything but the toaster is using anything but WiFi at the moment.

what brings the connections back online?

Joy

@IRJ said:

He's probably gonna try to sell you McAfee

Sorry to interrupt guys this really makes me laugh.
Peace A.J.

Dominica

Everything comes back online when the page finishes loading, or when I shut my laptop down, which I do when I've waited a bit and everything is still down.

JaredBusch

This is certainly one of the weirdest wifi issues I have ever seen reported. Then again, I do not hang in general support sections generally.

Since it is able to be reproduced, it can, at least be easily tested.

I would agree with whoever said to limit the bands on the AP for an initial test.

I would also force the laptop to use a static IP that is known to be free for a test.

thanksajdotcom

@IRJ said:

@Dominica said:

Oh whatever, AJ. MSE and Defender are fine.

I'm running Malwarebytes now. A malware issue didn't occur to me, since it's been like this since I started using it.

He's probably gonna try to sell you McAfee

Heck no.

thanksajdotcom

@Dominica said:

Oh whatever, AJ. MSE and Defender are fine.

I'm running Malwarebytes now. A malware issue didn't occur to me, since it's been like this since I started using it.

They really aren't...

thanksajdotcom

So let me make sure I got this right. Everything in the house is running on the network fine, until you try to do anything with this laptop? Does it affect wired devices? You guys have Time Warner as your ISP or who are you using? What is your ISP speed? How many total wifi devices do you have on the network? How is the backend cabled/connected? Does everything run through the Ubiquiti or is that just a WAP?

Dominica

@JaredBusch Good ideas. The testing is going to have to wait until Scott is home, because I don't have an ethernet cable to use on the main floor, and I don't like being down in the basement at night when he's not home, cause the dark is creepy. I've never tried plugging this laptop in so I should probably start being scientific and techie about this whole troubleshooting thing.

Dashrender

Does the new laptop even have an ethernet port?

Dominica

@Dashrender Yes.

Bill Kindle

If I were troubleshooting this I would go to another computer on the same network, fire up a WireShark session and sniff the traffic.
http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/Ethernet#Switched_Ethernet

scottalanmiller

Yes it is DHCP for everything on the wireless.

scottalanmiller

It typically loses connection for 10-50 seconds. Then it just comes back. If I run a continuous ping on another host I can see the AP become inaccessible for a block of time then come back. It's rather consistent in behaviour.