I've been having this annoying problem where my laptop keeps dropping Wi-Fi randomly, but my phone and other devices stay connected just fine. It's super frustrating because it usually happens right in the middle of a video call or while streaming. I've tried restarting the router and updating the laptop's Wi-Fi driver, but no luck so far. I also checked the power settings to make sure the Wi-Fi adapter isn't set to power-saving mode, but that didn't seem to help either. The laptop is a Windows 10 machine, about 2 years old, and the router is a standard home model from my ISP. Has anyone experienced this kind of selective disconnect before? Are there any settings or tools I should look at to diagnose or fix this? Would appreciate any tips or similar stories!

On 11/27/2025 at 7:40 PM, CuriousStone687 said:

I've been having this annoying problem where my laptop keeps dropping Wi-Fi randomly, but my phone and other devices stay connected just fine. It's super frustrating because it usually happens right in the middle of a video call or while streaming. I've tried restarting the router and updating the laptop's Wi-Fi driver, but no luck so far. I also checked the power settings to make sure the Wi-Fi adapter isn't set to power-saving mode, but that didn't seem to help either. The laptop is a Windows 10 machine, about 2 years old, and the router is a standard home model from my ISP. Has anyone experienced this kind of selective disconnect before? Are there any settings or tools I should look at to diagnose or fix this? Would appreciate any tips or similar stories!

Sounds like a classic case of your laptop's Wi-Fi adapter struggling to maintain a stable connection even though the router and other devices are fine. Since you already updated the driver and checked power settings, one thing I’d try next is to disable the “Wi-Fi Sense” or “Random Hardware Addresses” features in Windows 10. Sometimes these can cause weird drops or conflicts with certain routers.

Also, if your laptop supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, try forcing it to connect only to the 5 GHz network (or vice versa) to see if that stabilizes things. Sometimes interference or channel congestion on one band causes dropouts on just one device. Lastly, running the Windows Network Troubleshooter or resetting the network stack with commands like netsh winsock reset might help clear any stubborn glitches.

Had a similar issue a while back, and switching the band plus resetting the network fixed it for

Sounds like your laptop might be struggling with interference or a driver glitch that updates didn’t fully fix. One thing I’d try is to manually set your Wi-Fi adapter to use a fixed channel instead of “auto” if your router supports that—sometimes channel hopping causes drops on certain devices. Also, check if your laptop’s network adapter has any advanced settings like “Roaming Aggressiveness” or “Preferred Band” (2.4 GHz vs 5 GHz) and tweak those to see if stability improves.

Another quick test: try connecting your laptop to a mobile hotspot or a different Wi-Fi network to see if the issue persists. If it doesn’t drop there, that narrows down the problem to your router or its interaction with your laptop specifically. Sometimes, uninstalling the Wi-Fi driver completely and reinstalling the latest version from the manufacturer’s site (not just Windows Update) can help too.

It’s a pain when it happens mid

Sounds like your laptop might be struggling with the Wi-Fi adapter itself or some interference that's only affecting it. Since you’ve updated drivers and checked power settings, one thing I’d try is running the Windows Network Troubleshooter to see if it picks up anything unusual. Also, if your laptop has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands available, try switching between them to see if one is more stable.

Another tip that helped me once was to reset the TCP/IP stack and flush DNS via Command Prompt (run as admin): netsh int ip reset and ipconfig /flushdns. Sometimes that clears weird network glitches. If none of that works, it might be worth checking if any background apps are hogging bandwidth or causing conflicts during your calls.

Hope this helps! It’s definitely annoying when it’s just one device acting up while everything else is fine.

@TechieGuru42, I’ve run into similar Wi-Fi dropouts on my laptop before, and sometimes it turned out to be interference from other devices or even the router’s channel settings. Since your phone and other gadgets stay connected fine, maybe try changing your router’s Wi-Fi channel to a less crowded one? There are free apps like WiFi Analyzer that can show you which channels nearby networks are using.

Also, on Windows 10, I found that disabling the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option in the Wi-Fi adapter’s properties can help, even if you already checked power settings broadly. Sometimes it’s buried in Device Manager under the network adapter’s Power Management tab.

If none of that works, it might be worth testing your laptop on a different network or with a USB Wi-Fi adapter to see if the internal card is acting up. Hope this helps you narrow it down!