I'm using an Acer Nitro 5 running Windows 11. The laptop connects to my home Wi‑Fi and shows "Connected, secured," but Chrome, Bing, and other sites won't load. Other devices work normally on the same connection, and the laptop can access the internet when connected through my phone's hotspot. I've restarted the laptop and network adapter, reinstalled the network drivers, and tried ipconfig /flushdns, /release, /renew, /registerdns, and netsh winsock reset several times. Windows Network Diagnostics reports no problems. I also tried changing the DNS server to 8.8.8.8, but that made no difference. What else could be blocking the connection?
2 Answers
Changing DNS won’t help if the connection is being blocked before DNS requests can get through. Check Windows Settings for an accidental proxy or VPN, and make sure the Wi‑Fi network is set to obtain both its IP address and DNS automatically. You can also try forgetting the Wi‑Fi network and reconnecting with the password. If it still fails, compare the results of pinging your router and pinging 8.8.8.8; that will show whether the issue is between the laptop and router or farther out on the internet.
Since the laptop works through your phone’s hotspot, the Wi‑Fi adapter and drivers are probably fine. A third-party security program may be filtering traffic on your home network. You mentioned Norton 360, so temporarily disable its web, firewall, or network protection features to test it. If that fixes the problem, repair or fully uninstall Norton using its official removal tool, then restart Windows and test again.
I used to have McAfee installed and currently have Norton 360, so I’ll check whether one of them is filtering the connection. The hotspot working does make it seem specific to the home Wi‑Fi setup.