Random wifi drops running on battery

[Paul0311]

This post is a problem and the solution. I recently purchased a HP 15-fc0093dx running windows 11 S mode. Immediately started experiencing random wifi drops while on battery; stable operation when using the power adapter. A second older HP laptop running windows10 has never had a problem. This was my approach:

1) Eliminated ISP service. Checked cable modem status page. Downstream/Uspstream power levels, Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) all with range; Event Log - no T3/T4 timeouts (a source of internet drops). Was pretty sure ISP was not the problem.

2) Check WIFI signal strength with WIFI Analyzer (Matt Hafner's WIFI Analyzer is free in the Microsoft Store). Signal strength was excellent ( -50dBm to -67dBm is desirable).

3)  My wifi adapter: Realtek8852BE-VS WIFI 6 802.11ax. Check for driver updates --none. It's unlikely that was the problem because the system ran fine on power adapter.

4) My router. A 10 year old Netgear unit broadcasting at 2.4 GHz that never gave me any problems.

5) I took the laptop to the public library and ran on battery without any problems. Their wifi net is 5 GHz.

Solution: Purchased a wifi 6 router; wif drops solved. 

My Thoughts: WIFI 6 is defined by IEEE 802.11ax. My wifi adapter is wifi 6 compliant (ax). Every update to the standard (wifi4, wifi5) requires the new standard to be backward compatible, but is it? WIFI 6 introduced a feature called Target Wake Time (TWT). It is intended to improve battery life by controlling when your adapter "sleeps or wakes up" so it will save energy searching for a wifi signal (Ref: Intel.com). My guess is that TWT is turned off when your using the power adapter.