My HP laptop connects to our home Wi‑Fi or its extender with a strong signal, but after a few minutes the connection drops to one bar or disconnects completely. Other devices in the house stay connected normally. I've restarted the laptop, rebooted and unplugged the router, adjusted the adapter's HT mode, preferred band, roaming aggressiveness, and power settings, and updated the Wi‑Fi driver. I also checked the IP configuration but still can't access the router's local settings page. The laptop connects to my phone's hotspot reliably, so the problem seems limited to the home network. What else should I try?
4 Answers
The extender may be interfering with the laptop, especially if both the router and extender use similar network names or are switching the laptop between access points. Try powering the extender off and testing the laptop with only the main router. If both networks disappear when you do that, check whether the extender is connected properly or whether the router depends on it for coverage.
If disabling the extender doesn’t change anything, try forgetting the saved home network and reconnecting from scratch. You could also reset the laptop’s network settings and check the router for firmware updates or security settings that may not agree with the laptop’s adapter. Reseating the internal Wi‑Fi card is worth considering only if the laptop also becomes unstable on other networks.
Since the laptop works normally with your phone’s hotspot, its Wi‑Fi card and driver are probably okay. That points more toward a compatibility or configuration issue with the home router. Try connecting specifically to the router’s 2.4 GHz network and then its 5 GHz network separately, rather than letting the laptop choose automatically. If only one band is unstable, you’ve narrowed down the cause.
You can check the real connection quality from Command Prompt with `netsh wlan show interfaces`; the signal percentage there is more useful than the taskbar bars. Also compare the connection on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. If the laptop is stable on a phone hotspot but not either home band, restarting the router’s Wi‑Fi configuration or temporarily using a separate network name for each band may help.

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