My ISP has changed my modem, now W8.1 can't connect well

[rambomhtri]

It's not obsolete. Can you explain then why it worked perfectly before my ISP changed my modem?

 

[alphanumeric]

Outdated would probably be a better description. If I were you I would go to a buddies house and connect to their WIFI. then slowly move farther and farther away from their Wireless access point. If you lose the signal after only a short distance you know its an issue with your laptop. If you get a good signal from a distance then its an issue with your laptop and your wireless access point.

If your laptop can't get a good signal anywhere, It could be that your Wifi card or antenna has failed. That or all the driver installs have muddled things up. If it was me I'd back up all my data to external media and do a factory reset. That will put you back the stock factory driver. If you still can't get a good signal (try two or three different wireless networks) then its very likely the WIFI card or antenna is bad.

If you get a good signal everywhere but at home its a compatibility issue between your laptop and the new access point. It's rare but it happens. In that case try contacting your ISP or double check the setup of the access point. The other option is to replace the WIFI card in the laptop.

 

[rambomhtri]

Outdated? It has just 1 year, what the hell? My previous laptop was a Toshiba, from 2004, and the WiFi card has been working GREAT till the end of the laptop's life. AND, Intel puts the 7260 WiFi cards in the top of their cards, and that makes me think that they are the more reliable, expensive, fast and better cards they sell for laptops.

I don't know if it's the card or my laptop's antenna. I'd like to install this 7260 in another laptop, and see if the strength of the signal is as good as it should be. Man, my almost 10 years old Intel WiFi card has twice the range of this one. That's not right, that can't be possible.

I don't know neither if it's a problem between my 7260 and my modem, but any other device I have works great and can connect to the modem from far away. I got to call to my ISP and see if I can change the channels or something to fix this. But as I say, it's weird that only my laptop is not working (low WiFi range) as it should be if the modem is not configured correctly.

If I were you I would go to a buddies house and connect to their WIFI. then slowly move farther and farther away from their Wireless access point. If you lose the signal after only a short distance you know its an issue with your laptop. If you get a good signal from a distance then its an issue with your laptop and your wireless access point.

Yeah, I have to do that.

If your laptop can't get a good signal anywhere

Only if I'm in the same modem's room, the signal is nice and I have no problem at all. When I go to the next room and try to connect, there's very poor signal, and I can't connect at all, not even once. Windows just shows: "Can't connect to this network". I've tried to connect through Intel's PROSet Utility, but it's the same problem, can't connect.

NEWS: I've done a factory reset, quite overkill. BUT, the problem is "solved". I can connect to my modem now from the next room, but the range is still so poor and low compared to other devices. I've not updated the stock drivers, so I don't change anything related to the range of the WiFi card. Nevertheless, I have been using this laptop for 4 months with the latest drivers available, and the range was the same I have now, before the problem occurred. I don't understand it, cause I tried 2 times these same drivers 4 days ago, before restoring, and the range didn't improve anything.

If you get a good signal everywhere but at home its a compatibility issue between your laptop and the new access point

Yeah, but as I've said, 3 smartphones, and a W8.1, W7, and WXP laptops can connect perfectly to the modem.


And here's a question:

If the antenna is the problem, replacing the 7260 N WiFi PLUS Bluetooth card by another one, let's say Intel's 7260 AC (I don't know if I should trust on Intel's Wireless devices again) won't fix the problem, right?

I've read that the antenna is in the screen, and not in the card.

If I replace the WiFi card, I think I have to unlock BIOS.

But I shouldn't have to change my WiFi card, damn,it's a new laptop, it can reach 300Mbps, it should be nice, it's Intel.

 

[alphanumeric]

Some laptop manufacturers bake a white list into the BIOS so only approved hardware works. They want you to have to buy any upgrades from them. I swapped the WIFI card in my ASUS laptop for a dual band card and had no problems, YMMV though. If you remove the access panel to the WIFI card you should see two coax cables attached to it. Those cables run up to the antenna's. The antennas are normally in the screen section to improve range. That means those two cables run up though the screens hinge. The manufacturer will try to route them so wear and tear is a minimum. If your laptop is fairly new I wouldn't expect them to be defective. Still, if they weren't installed properly they could have gotten pinched somewhere or been chafing on something. If you get a poor signal everywhere, on multiple networks that's a sign something isn't right. Especially if you got a good signal in the past. If it is an antenna problem swapping in a new WIFI card won't fix it.

Just because all your other devices work fine doesn't mean there isn't a compatibility issue between your laptop and the access point. Having said that though, if it was a compatibility issue I would think it wouldn't connect at all regardless of signal strength. I'm no expert though.

It sounds like now that you did the Reset your back to the range you had before? If that's correct it was a driver issue.

 

[rambomhtri]

Yeah, now the range is the same I had before, like 2 weeks ago, before the new modem came. Nevertheless, it has still a noticeable lower range than any of my other devices. Could a new card, like 7260 AC, improve my WiFi range?

The thing is that I've not compared the WiFi range with other networks.

I think that If I call my ISP and change some values of the modem, I'll fix this low range issue. The incompatibility can be the strength of the signal. I have no problem at all NOW if I'm in the same room or the next room, but when I go to the opposite room of my house, it can't even connect, not even a low signal connection, that bugs me. At least it should connect to it, as all my other devices do. I've read that some guys have changed the channels of their router or something like that and they have fixed their range problems.

It can be a driver problem, but I've been using the latest 17.X.X ones for 3 months and I had no problem with the range. When the problem occurred, I tried the stock ones, the ones from the lenovo's page, roll back to the newest ones... And nothing. So it's weird.

 

[alphanumeric]

You may be able to log in and change settings your self, just be care full what you change. I can access my ISP's modem. I turned off it's WIFI section and use my D-Link for that instead. If you open a command prompt and run ipconfig/all. What's listed as the Default Gateway is the ip address of the modem. Plug that into IE, for me its http://192.168.2.1 and that should get you the login page for the modem.