Brand new notebook - poor wifi signal despite close proximity to router

[bidby]

My friend has just bought a brand new HP laptop, and upon starting up and connecting to wifi, it has failed to achieve greater than 60% signal strength. (checking with netsh wlan show interface)

I have tried connecting it to two different routers (the one at my place and the one at theirs), at my place the router is in my small room, and at no point in the room did the signal strength get any higher than 60% (ish).

This would be manageable, however, at their place the room is further away from the (communal) router, and it cannot even connect to the wifi.

Naturally I have googled this issue rather relentlessly, and I appear to not be the only one faced with similar issues with Windows 10 or this Wifi card. Unfortunately it's hard to tell which is causing the problem (if not both).

I have tried a number of different drivers (in fact the 60% scores were achieved with drivers not designed for this card, both the original (pre installed) and most up to date drivers failed to register above 30%) and have still not come across one that does the trick.

I am at the end of my wits (and knowledge) and am close to resorting to buying either an external wifi card or a repeater of some kind. I refrain only becuase I am 90% sure this problem is fixable from the software point of view. I just don't know what else to try.

Things I have tried:

1. Changing roaming aggressiveness to highest setting
2. Ensuring the adapter has full power in batter saving mode
3. Older and newest drivers for the wificard (RTL8723DE)
4. Drivers for different wificards (RTL8723BE)
5. Drivers from different OS (Windows 8.1)

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the router so I can't even reset that.

Should I just keep trying every driver I can find and hoping one works? I have seen people talk about solutions for this problem with this wifi card when they have installed Ubuntu - is this likely to be the same problem? Can I apply the same fix(I doubt it)

Please help! The laptop wasn't cheap and buying more external tech is not something I'm keen on doing!

I should also add that other devices (my old laptop, our phones) connect considerably better at both places. So it's not a case of the signal being weak at those spots, its that the laptop gets around half, maybe less, of the signal strength than the other devices at the same physical locations. There must be something wrong with the software here, I refuse to believe this brand new mid-range laptop cannot get more than 2/4 bars on the wifi strength!

[A4Apollo]

Hi! @bidby, Welcome to HP forums.

I understand you have wireless connection issues with your PC.

Don't worry I'm here to help you out.

Did you make any software or hardware changes on your PC?

Are the wireless drivers listed in the device manager?

Please share the product number of your PC to assist you better.

If you are connecting your PC using a wireless connection try updating the BIOS, chipset and wireless drivers on your PC and check if it helps.

Update the BIOS using this link. Click Here

Note: Before uninstallation of the wireless drivers make sure your PC is connected via ethernet cable.

Refer this article to know more information about using HP support assistant.

Try the steps recommended below to solve the wireless issue with your PC.

Click the Start Button.
Type “Device Manager” and press Enter.
Click Continue if prompted.
Click the [+] next to Network adapters.
Right Click on “Realtek RTL8191SE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC” or similar Wireless card.
Click Properties.
Click on the Advanced Tab.
Click on 802.11d.
On the right-hand side change the drop down to Enabled.
The  following steps are optional but may help:
Select TX power level.
On the right-hand side change the drop down to 100%.
Select Wireless mode.
On the right-hand side change the drop-down menu to “IEEE 802.11b/g”.
Click OK.

Manually change network settings

Manually changing the network settings can resolve wireless connection issues. Create a restore point in Windows, and then manually change the network settings.
Using the search box on the taskbar, search for and open Create a restore point.
The System Properties window displays.
Click Create.
Type a name for the restore point, and then click Create.
Windows creates the restore point.
Using the search box on the taskbar, search for Command Prompt. In the results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
If a User Account Control screen displays asking if you want to allow the app to make changes to your computer, click Yes.

Type the following commands one at a time, pressing Enter after each one.

ipconfig/flushdns
nbtstat -R
nbtstat -RR
netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt
netsh winsock reset
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
To open the TCP Global Settings, type netsh int tcp show global in Command Prompt and then press Enter.
Make sure all settings are disabled except Receive-Side Scaling State.
Close Command Prompt, reboot the system and then try to connect to the Internet.

Forget the wireless connection

If you’re having “Windows 10 can’t connect to this network” error, you might want to “forget” your wireless connection in order to fix this problem. To forget wireless network on Windows 10, do the following:

Open Settings App and go to Network & Internet.
Go to Wi-Fi section and click Manage Wi-Fi settings.
Scroll down to the Manage known networks, select your Wireless network and click Forget.
After you’ve done that, connect to the same wireless network again.

Refer this article to further troubleshoot wireless issues with your laptop. Click Here

If the issue still persists after trying out the steps try running a system diagnostics on your PC and check if the hardware components on your PC are functioning correctly.

Refer this article to know more information about running system diagnostics on your PC.

Let me know if this works!

Have a great day! 🙂

Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.

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