Hey everyone! I'm having a frustrating issue with my DELL 16 ProPlus running Windows 11. Whenever I close the lid, the wifi icon vanishes and I lose my connection. Usually, after restarting the laptop one or two times, it comes back, but it happens every single time I shut the lid. I've combed through countless articles and posts, mostly relating to ASUS TUF models, and haven't found anything that solves my problem. Here's what I've already tried: running sfc and dism, updating and reinstalling the drivers, checking power options (there's no option in Device Manager since it uses modern standby), and changing the Windows setting to do nothing when the lid closes. I've also disabled MIMO SMPS and set the wireless mode to 5GHz 802.11a. I didn't find anything relevant in the BIOS either. Any help or suggestions would be hugely appreciated! Thanks!
4 Answers
Are you using Trend Micro for antivirus? I've seen similar issues where it interfered with Wi-Fi connections. You might want to check out this Reddit post for more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1mzxuyz/trend_micro_disabling_wifi_anyone_else/.
You can run the command [netsh wlan show wlanreport](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/analyze-the-wireless-network-report-76da0daa-1db2-6049-d154-7bb679eb03ed) to analyze your wireless network report. It might give you some hints about what's going wrong.
I recently dealt with this on some Dell Precision 3590 laptops. It seemed like the device was going into hibernation and wouldn't wake up properly without a restart. I found that Dell is a bit slow on updating their drivers, so I went to Intel's website and downloaded the AX211 driver directly from there. After updating to the latest version, the issue was resolved for me. Here's the link to the download page, just in case you need it: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19351/863003/intel-wireless-wi-fi-drivers-for-windows-10-and-windows-11.html. I used versions .150 and .160 without any problems.
Thanks for the info, I'll definitely try that out!
I remember having a similar issue with Dell laptops. Sometimes the Dell Connection Optimizer messes with the Wi-Fi settings. Check your driver options to see if there's something related to the lid switch that could be causing the problem.
I'll check it out, thanks for the tip!
Yes, we are using Trend Micro. I checked out the reddit post; seems like there might be a strange interaction between Trend, Dell, and the Intel AX? I’ll look for updates, thanks!