Hey everyone, I've been running into a frustrating issue lately. Whenever I try to download a large file, like a video game update that's a few gigabytes, my entire house's Wi-Fi goes down. It affects all devices, including those connected by Ethernet. My PC is directly wired to the wall, so it doesn't even use Wi-Fi, yet it still disconnects. I've tried resetting the router and even turned off the power-saving mode that disables the Wi-Fi adapter. I'm using Windows 10, and I can't recall if this has happened in the past when downloading large files. Does anyone have some ideas on what might be causing this or how to fix it? Let me know if you need more details! I'm currently using my cell data to post this.
4 Answers
Since you're on Ethernet, maybe your device is using up all the bandwidth, leaving nothing for the router to handle the connected devices. Try setting a download speed limit on your PC and see if it helps with stability when downloading large files.
First off, check if there's a firmware update available for your router. It sounds like the connection might be getting overloaded, which could lead to it dropping out. A simple update could resolve some bugs or improve performance.
I've definitely experienced this before too. After downloading heavy updates (like 80-100GB), the network would freak out. The best fix for me was to do a hard reset of the router; pin it and reset it back to factory settings. It worked like a charm!
Just throwing this out there, but if you're downloading non-official copies of games (like torrents), your ISP might be detecting heavy traffic and might cut you off as a warning. I had a similar issue with my ISP back in the day; they caught on to my downloads and shut me down until I called them back to sort it out!
It’s interesting you mention that! Torrenting itself isn’t illegal, but ISPs have their ways to monitor traffic. I wonder if they're tracking the hashes or something. But isn't that a bit invasive?