WiFi Issue From Hell

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DravidDavid

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#277190 1-Oct-2020 01:52

The problem: Wireless router does not show up in available networks.
My brother has been suffering from this issue for a while now. I can't seem to solve it, but maybe someone on this forum has run in to it before.

This might seem like a straight forward issue, but the network shows up on every single other device, except this one PC. We've tried a USB wireless dongle and a 1x PCI-E TP-Link add-in card. The motherboard has no on-board WiFi. Both the USB dongle and the TP-Link PCI-E card display all other neighboring networks, except the one closest to it and the one they want to connect to.

The modem has been factory reset multiple times. SSID name changed, guest networks enabled/disabled, A/B/G settings and channel settings set manually with and without bandsteering or WPS enabled. I tried disabling the 5G signal transmission to see if that had anything to do with it. I've used third party WiFi scanner apps to dertermine the channel all other networks are operating on and even those do not pick up the one network we want to connect to. All the while, the PC directly behind it and every Google, Amazon and Android product in the building can all see eachother, including the offending modem and all neighboring networks.

Windows 10 has also been factory reset. I'm at a complete and utter loss. I've tried enabling and disabling services, uninstalling drivers, you name it. I would have thought the TP-Link card would have solved this issue and it was just a quirky USB thing, but no.

Does anyone have any ideas? I've told my brother to try a live linux distro on a bootable USB drive and attempt to connect to the WiFi through that OS, but other than that and trying another modem (which is working perfectly fine for everything else) I am all out of ideas. The internet is devoid of any useful help on this issue and the solutions that get close usually end with "uninstalled drivers, reinstalled drivers and it worked". Which sounds like a plan, except that has been tried twice with two different pieces of hardware.

I would love nothing more than to solve this issue and fill this post with keywords to save the next soul that runs in to this weird problem. Thank you in advance for all your help!

Cheers,
David

Jase2985

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#2576901 1-Oct-2020 05:25

its likely because the wifi dongle doesn't support all chanels the access point is broadcasting on

i suspect if you change the wifi chanel to 1 6 or 11 for wifi n (2.4ghz) and say 36 for AC (5ghz) it should show.

bfginger

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#2576905 1-Oct-2020 06:19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Legal channel use depends on the country. A wifi device intended for a specific market may be liberalised or restricted depending on local regulations. When a device is broadcasting out of designed range of other devices they either won't detect it or will do so only intermittently.

The motherboard has no on-board WiFi. Both the USB dongle and the TP-Link PCI-E card display all other neighboring networks, except the one closest to it and the one they want to connect to.

It is possible the wifi router is automatically broadcasting in the higher frequency zone because nobody else's router is for the reason nobody else has devices that can communicate in that band.

Hamgran

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#2579791 5-Oct-2020 22:37

Definitely can understand the pain and frustration when the chosen wi-fi does not show in available networks. Am not a geek but will share my recent experience.

I upgraded to a wi-fi 6 router recently and was able to connect 15+ devices without any problems. All except my granddaughter’s Lenovo N23 notebook. It could not “see” the new router; only the neighbours’ networks were available. Laptop had no problem previously connecting to the ASUS RT-AC68U or Spark’s Huawei 659b.

Thinking she had inadvertently changed some settings or there was a problem with a recent update I eventually reset Windows 10 and updated drivers etc. to no avail. Laptop however, still connected to Spark router with no issues when I swapped that in.

Tried an older D-Link AC 1900 wi-fi USB 3.0 adapter but still laptop unable to “see” the new router.

Finally went to see the networking guru at PB Tech who suggested I try an ASUS USB AC53 Nano MU-MIMO dual band AC1200 USB wi-fi adapter. Great excitement when it could “see” the new router, but ever so briefly, as then got the BSOD!

So back to PB Tech where I changed it for a D Link DWA-181 MU-MIMO dual band AC 1300 Nano USB wi-fi adapter. Success at last – it works.

So long story short – sometimes it just has to be the right wi-fi adapter. Am sure that someone here will have the technical explanation for this but hope it helps.

lxsw20

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#2579796 5-Oct-2020 23:05

Long as it's putting out 2.4GHz / 5GHz it shouldn't really matter what the WiFi adapter is.

sbiddle

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#2579824 6-Oct-2020 07:23

lxsw20:

Long as it's putting out 2.4GHz / 5GHz it shouldn't really matter what the WiFi adapter is.

Exactly.

There is only a one reason why a network won't appear in a scan - and that is incompatible channel settings.

This in itself can only be caused as a result of two thing - either setting an AP to channels that the WiFi client radio doesn't support, ie the WiFi adapter region settings are set to the US and the AP is set to frequencies from the New Zealand and the WiFi AP and or client does not correctly recognise 802.11d beacon frames OR you're setting channel bandwidths in the AP that the client radio does not support.

There is no such thing as a WiFi adapter that's not compatible with an AP.

Batman

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#2579857 6-Oct-2020 09:01

Jase2985:

its likely because the wifi dongle doesn't support all chanels the access point is broadcasting on

i suspect if you change the wifi chanel to 1 6 or 11 for wifi n (2.4ghz) and say 36 for AC (5ghz) it should show.

has OP tried this? report?

New World

Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

Hamgran

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#2579895 6-Oct-2020 10:16

Thanks for your responses. Out of curiosity I have checked the channels: 2.4ghz is on 3 and 5ghz is on 36.

I had no issues connecting 2.4ghz devices, only the laptop which normally connects to 5ghz which is set as you recommend. Will adjust the 2.4ghz channel to 1, 6, or 11.

DravidDavid

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#2580704 7-Oct-2020 15:25

Thanks for all your feedback guys.

Where do I start? All of the above has already been tried.

Jase2985:
its likely because the wifi dongle doesn't support all chanels the access point is broadcasting on

i suspect if you change the wifi chanel to 1 6 or 11 for wifi n (2.4ghz) and say 36 for AC (5ghz) it should show.

Channels have been switched and disabled/enabled on both 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands. Observations re the dongle below.

sbiddle:

lxsw20:

Long as it's putting out 2.4GHz / 5GHz it shouldn't really matter what the WiFi adapter is.

Exactly.

There is only a one reason why a network won't appear in a scan - and that is incompatible channel settings.

This in itself can only be caused as a result of two thing - either setting an AP to channels that the WiFi client radio doesn't support, ie the WiFi adapter region settings are set to the US and the AP is set to frequencies from the New Zealand and the WiFi AP and or client does not correctly recognise 802.11d beacon frames OR you're setting channel bandwidths in the AP that the client radio does not support.

There is no such thing as a WiFi adapter that's not compatible with an AP.

Interestingly, the dongle worked perfectly fine previous and decided to stop. When replaced with a PCI-E TP-Link (TL-WN881ND) the same problem persisted with the computer. Personal network not detected. Only all neighbouring networks. The dongle when plugged in to other computers also prevented all other wireless interfaces from seeing their network specifically when plugged in, while all other networks (other than their own) displayed just fine, which I could only boil down to coincidence really. But forgetting about the dongle all together, the problem persists regardless.

The Windows 10 machine that kicked all this off had been refreshed and the router reset to factory default. No change. Still unable to connect. WN881ND changed to new slot and no change there either. It got so bad that they simply purchased another router which all devices connect to just fine.

I don't know why their modem straight up rejected the one computer specifically, but it did and a solution could not be found unfortunately. They've still got the modem and I suggested they ship it to me for science.