Intermittent network issue

[sigfan91]

yep. mobile phones, 5 different tablets, two other laptops... all beat the L521X wifi performance on the original killer network 802.11n and the intel 801.22ac card. dunno if i should still pursue another diferent nic card at this point, but maybe if i do have to buy another router.

How about try a cheap USB wifi adapter? Remove the onboard wifi from equation. Maybe the port for the onboard wifi has problems.

[the86d]

...Spectrum Analyzer that let me see what channels are less congested (or even used by you, or your neighbors) so you can use said channels instead. 11 wasn't even used in my neighborhood, nor was one of the 5Ghz bands, until I switched to them:

...

Probably your neighbors and their WiFi interference, or people screwing with your WiFi trying to get on, or trying to spoof your MAC?

[yellowsulphur]

Did you connect the antennas to the cards mini bnc connectors when you installed it? Did you install Intel drivers for the card or are you using Microsoft drivers? Intel drivers are necessary to gain full functionality of the card. It sucks your speeds are so low as these cards aren't turds. They have a theoretical max throughput of 867 Mbps but, more realistically including overhead about 500 Mbps. The best I've seen is 350/350 @ 1ms with this card.

[high_revs]

Disconnect/disable everything from the Router EXCEPT your one trusted Laptop or Desktop. Connect the one device direct via a short cat-5/6 patch cord, disable wireless on the router if you have tons of devices on Wi-Fi or unplug/disconnect ALL Wi-Fi devices, whichever is easiest.
Test.
If you see an improvement, use process of elimination (re-connect one network device at a time). There may be something you don't expect on your network drawing bandwidth. Let us know, I have a few other ideas.

yeah... that's still what I gotta do. just got back from week long biz trip and didn't get this over the weekend. i also wanted to remove the switch in the equation and keep it only to the laptop. i'll need one more port though for the home phone.

How about try a cheap USB wifi adapter? Remove the onboard wifi from equation. Maybe the port for the onboard wifi has problems.

didn't want to invest anymore. have tried another wifi card (ac model). i put the wifi card summer 2015. this issue only happened this year. i've been on win10 also since the upgrade happened so that's most likely it (since it's been running for a while and drivers are updated from dell (ethernet) and intel direclty (new wifi nic).

Probably your neighbors and their WiFi interference, or people screwing with your WiFi trying to get on, or trying to spoof your MAC?

nah.. doubt it. it's a known issue with this model. only last option is to move to a 801.11ac router to see if that gets better. but i don't have a need for wifi for this laptop as i treat it more like desktop. i ran a ethernet once from living port to my tv dinner table when i used to do work in the living room.

Did you connect the antennas to the cards mini bnc connectors when you installed it? Did you install Intel drivers for the card or are you using Microsoft drivers? Intel drivers are necessary to gain full functionality of the card. It sucks your speeds are so low as these cards aren't turds. They have a theoretical max throughput of 867 Mbps but, more realistically including overhead about 500 Mbps. The best I've seen is 350/350 @ 1ms with this card.

of course. yes on wires and yes on drivers. i always update intel drivers via intel update. again, i really think this is a h/w problem with this model that a new nic cna't process the higher speeds.

[bellts]

What OS? I've had problems with Windows 10 cutting out from time to time. Opened up a command prompt (as an administrator) and ran the following commands, followed by a reboot. Problems went away.

netsh winsock reset
chkdsk /f

Read more here (cmds in the comment section):

https://betanews.com/2016/12/10/windows-10-suddenly-killing-internet-connectivity-for-some-users/

[the86d]

I don't know if it works on Win10 also, but a "sfc /scannow" CAN fix Win 7 issues in some cases. Update all drivers, using a legit Win10 install.

Try a live Linux distro, like Elementary OS off DVD/USB and see if the issue persists...

[high_revs]

so I guess i have two bad cables? i had a second lan line i forgot about from the same jack when i used to use my work computer at home (previous company).

oddly i've not seen one instance so far of any issue and it's a cat5, not cat5e!

will have to keep on monitoring.

the86d,
i actually did a fresh isntall of win10. when it upgraded my win7, i downloaded a copy via the tools they gave me and i installed from scratch.

[bigbearbear]

Cat 5 cables can work, just not reliably so all the time. Cat 6 cables are pretty cheap, why not just replace all your old Cat 5/5e cables with them and be sure that you have the best possible cable for your network?