New solution for wireless lan bug in Win 10 upgrade

[canada_eng]

I, too, experienced the loss of WiFi connectivity and reliability on a 3 month old Pavilion when Win 10 automatically installed its 1607 update.  For 3 weeks I researched the web and tried everything including updated drivers for Realtek 8101E/8168/8169 NDIS and PCIE interfaces.  The HP Network Check Launcher plug-in for Chrome was a marginal improvement but not reliable.  I also contacted Microsoft support and made no progress beyond what is described above.

Here is the fix I found that ensures probably 99% success on re-establishing WiFi connectivity when coming back from sleep mode or at start-up.  It has been a month of testing and the only event it did not work was when the WiFi router was messed up, requiring a power reset on it.

Worth noting is that the new Realtek drivers did not seem to improve things, and actually make things worse.  I tried to contact Realtek but got no response.  My current drivers are:

PCIe FE Family Controller  2015-07-23  10.3.723.2015

RTL8723BE 802.11 bgn Wi-Fi Adapter  2016-03-23  2023.30.301.2016

Sequence to fix:

1.  In the lower righthand screen, click on the wireless adapter icon, click on "Network settings"

2.  Select "Wi Fi" on the lefthand side of the popup

3.  Scroll down and click on "Change adapter options" under "Related settings"

4.  Double click on your "Wi-Fi" icon

5.  Click on "Wireless Properties"

6.  Ensure there is a checkmark in the selection "Connect automatically when this network is in range"

7.  Ensure this is a checkmark in the selection "Connect even if the network is not broadcasting its name (SSID)"  (THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SETTING!)

8.  OK all dialog boxes and reboot.

I suspect the problem in Win 10 is that even if the setting is to connect automatically if the network is in range, the bug is that it waits for, or doesn't acknowledge, the beacon broadcast from the wireless router to configure the IP settings (both the automatically assigned IP address and, more importantly from the looks of it, the gateway IP).  This band-aid solution forces your PC to talk to the wireless router (SSID) regardless if it has been identified or not.  As a result, it essentially makes the WiFi connection all the time.  If I could talk to an advanced tech support person in Microsoft, I am sure we could get this debugged and patched in days.

Hope it helps.