Pavilion - Poor wireless connection

[Fossaw]

My wife uses a Pavilion G laptop, (might be a G6 - not sure),. Until recently, it connected wirelessly and caused her no problems. Our service provider, (TeleNor), sent us a new house inlet router to replace the one that previously sat on the floor under the table where the laptop normal resides, along with our telephone.

The new router connects to the coax port via an adaptor which allows sharing with the existing TV antenna. TeleNor said "nobody uses telephones anymore" and the number was cancelled much to my annoyance, I DO use the phone, and the number is known to contacts on three continents, but I digress. The coax point is on the other side of the room.

The laptop connects to this router, but it is far from acceptable watching video for example. A few seconds, the rotating "wait a sec" symbol, a few seconds, the symbol etc. You get the idea. Connecting it by cable to my router upstairs, it is fine.

Does the machine need some kind of driver update for the radio or what? She cannot base the laptop near the new router. Over tp you.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

What model Wi-Fi adapter does the notebook come with?

If you don't know, go to the device manager, click to expand the network adapters device manager category and there you will find the name and model number of the wireless network adapter.

[Fossaw]

Hi, there are two lines which look relevant....

Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller - this looks like the driver software

Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adaptor - that looks like the hardware.

... is that what you want?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, that is the model of the Wi-Fi adapter.

This is the latest W8.1 driver HP has for that model Wi-Fi adapter:

2023.66.0330.2018   04/11/2018

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp91501-92000/sp91514.exe 

[Fossaw]

Is there a, (simple), way to see what is in there now? Does the problem I describe sound like an "old driver" type of thing to you?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

It could be anything.

If it was working fine before the transition to the new networking hardware, then it could be a driver issue or it could be the old model RTL8188EE Wi-Fi adapter, or the soon to go out of support, W8.1 operating system is not compatible with the new hardware.

You can check the driver version and date as follows:

Go to the device manager, click to expand the network adapters device manager category.

Click on the Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter.

Click on the driver tab.

On that window will be the driver version and date.

[Fossaw]

Sorry for the delay, she came home, needed tea and to thrill me with all the latest junk about who said what to who...who broke the photo copier... you get the idea.

Anyway, the driver date is showing as 31-03-2016...

Clicking update driver, it has a short think and returns saying "The best drivers for your device are already installed".

Below that is some text which, (edited summary), says "There may be better drivers on Windows Updater or on the device manufacturers website".

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

It may be that the hardware revision of the RTL8188EE Wi-Fi adapter will only accept a driver update to a certain version.

The only thing you can try is to see if manually updating the driver to the version I gave you will work.

Go to the device manager, click to expand the network adapters device manager category.

Click on the Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter.

Click on the driver tab.

Click on Update driver.

Select the 'Browse my computer for driver software' option and browse to the driver folder that was created when you ran the file.

That folder will be located in C:\SWSetup\sp91514.

Make sure the Include subfolders box is checked and see if the driver will update that way.

If not, then you have the latest Wi-Fi driver installed for the hardware revision of the RTL8188EE wifi card your notebook has.

If you let me know the full model number or product number of your notebook, I can see if you can install a better model Wi-Fi card than what you have now.

How to Find Your HP Laptop Model Number (Video) | HP® Tech Takes

You may also want to see if taking the free upgrade to W10 makes any difference (but I will have to look up the specs for your notebook after you post the model number to see if W10 will work or not).

W8.1 goes out of Microsoft support for security and cumulative updates on January 10, 2023.

You can buy a USB dual band Wi-Fi adapter and perhaps that will work better than the internal card.

[Fossaw]

I'll be back later, she wants me to prepare veg.

[Fossaw]

I tried to install the new driver, it looks like it starts, but after, perhaps, 2 seconds, it stops and returns to the "The best drivers for your device are already installed" page, and the adapter properties page shows the same 2016 data it had before, so I suppose, it does not want to install the newer driver.