Hello guys!
I am using WiFi on my laptop, and it often goes to "Limited Connectivity" for no reason. The only way I have found to temporarily fix this is to turn it off and on, and it'll work for a few hours. This only occurs on the laptop and not on my mobile, so I don't think its the router's fault. I am using EventGhost for controlling laptop from my mobile, as I am often away. When this happens, I can't control the laptop, and have to call someone else to implement the temporary fix.
A request: Before toggling the network, it should check if the internet is really not working, as I have downloads running all the time.
I'm not a computer person, but I have searched for this problem on Google, and I couldn't find anything to work for me. I was already using EG from a while, so I thought I could use it for this. If there's a way to do this with another software more simply, please guide me.
Thank you very much!
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Toggling internet connection if not working
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kgschlosser
- Site Admin
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- Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:43 am
- Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado USA
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
This should not be a problem but in the scheme of things it's a bandaid to solve the problem.. the underlying issue still exists. Now we can use EG to make it work. I personally would rather find the problem. Now if memory serves there is an Intel centrino WiFi card that has this exact problem. Now I know of this issue because I had the same problem and it was extremely annoying the model number is something like 6750. I know it starts with a 6 but at any rate I would check your card. Get me the model number of it. Because there are some simple settings to hat can be made to the card it's self to improve the connection quality. I also do know there is a feature with these cards that can cause them to jump between networks and frequencies if it is a dual band. So you might want to look into turning that specific feature off. And this is not something that is located I am the wifi control panel. It would be in device manager.
If you like the work I have been doing then feel free to 
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
When the problem occurs are you still able to ping your default gateway ? Are you able to ping some other devices on your local network ? Because it seems that you still have access to your local network, that's what I understand when you say "it goes to Limited Connectivity".
Even if it's easy to create a workaround with EG, I totally agree with KG you should rather fix this the right way or it will give you all types of headaches sooner or later, just an advice.
Even if it's easy to create a workaround with EG, I totally agree with KG you should rather fix this the right way or it will give you all types of headaches sooner or later, just an advice.
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
http://puu.sh/wxk0G/b4ec6779eb.png What do you think?
i have already tried reinstalling the driver.
@Can't access the LAN either.
Thanks for your help.
i have already tried reinstalling the driver.
@Can't access the LAN either.
Thanks for your help.
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
I was wondering if you have you read this post :
http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... t/19650630
someone is saying this :
you should give it a try in case you haven't already.
http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... t/19650630
someone is saying this :
So I decided to remove the Dell Wireless 1708 WiFi driver and installed the Win 10 bundled driver - Broadcom 6.30.223.256 which seems to solve the problem for me. No more drop connection or erratic speeds.
you should give it a try in case you haven't already.
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
I am using Windows 8.1, should I still download a Broadcom driver and replace it with my default one?
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
you can give it a try it should still work, since these drivers are provided by Windows (you don't need to download them, they already should be there in your system). And in case it doesn't it's not hard to reinstall your previous drivers.
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
I just checked, that version supports Windows 8.1. I will install the driver when I get access to my laptop in about 12 hours. As this problem occurs like once or twice a day, I won't know if it's truly fixed for about 2 days. I will reply to this thread with an update whatever the case.
Thanks.
Thanks.
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kgschlosser
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5190
- Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:43 am
- Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado USA
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
OK we have some clues here to work with...
so you say the message you get is "Limited Connectivity"
The following is going to seem like a lot but it really is not. but it is best to do while reading this post is to do what it is stating. so copy and paste the post into a text file so that you can read it just in case the page decides to refresh and you don't have a connection. You will not do everything in this post. it's going to be a look for this and if you find it then do this kind of a setup.
The error above can only be cause by one thing and that is that your card was unable to acquire an IP address and is issuing it's self an APIPA address (Automatic Private IP Address).
Now the question why the card cannot obtain one. So we have a couple of things to investigate. I would start with the driver because this is what ultimately controls these things. If the problem does not subside then since the manufacturer is Broadcomm I would specifically go and download the RAW driver form them. A driver that has not been bloated up with "fluff" as i call it from Dell. If it is an exe file use 7zip (downloadable here for x64 http://www.7-zip.org/a/7z1700-x64.exe) and right click the exe file and click on open with 7 zip.
you have a 50/50 shot of it being able to open it.
if you can open it locate the drivers for your specific card and extract them to a folder.
if you are not able to open the exe file. you will launch the executable. then do not do anything else with it. the simple task of opening the exe file has caused it to be extracted to a temp folder. this folder is located in %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp. you can simply enter that into the address bar of your file explorer and it will bring you where you need to go. You are going to have to do a little exploring here. but the easiest way it to sort the folder/files by date. simply click on the header labeled date to do this. it should be the newest folder created. go into that folder locate the driver and copy it to another folder of you choosing. then you can close the install program.
uninstall any drivers that have been installed for the card If you installed any drivers for the card via an exe file then you will uninstall them through Add/Remove programs otherwise use device manager.
then in device manager re scan the computer for new devices. and let windows do it's thing. once it is done. right click on the card and click on update driver and go and locate the ones you extracted and install them. This will install only the driver and no extras. we want to make sure nothing else is interfering.
MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS!!!
**** EDIT****
NOTE: when i state power settings. there are 2 to specifically look for. windows turning the thing off. but also windows can also tell the card to go into a low broadcast power mode which will drop the transmitting range of the wifi card. It does these things when there is no user interaction on the computer. So if you are not physically using the machine that is considered no user interaction. doesn't matter if you are accessing it remotely or not you have to be physically touching the machine for windows to consider it being used. so best to turn those features off if you need access to the laptop remotely.
there are 2 spots depending on how the mainboard is set up. the wifi card internally can either be plugged into a PCIx1 slot or it could be plugged in and use the USB internally. So we want to make sure this is covered in all places. So go into the device manager and in the driver for the card go to the device properties in there you will be able to disable the card being turned off to conserve power. then also look under all of the USB root hubs and see if there is an entry for the card being plugged in. if there is one make sure you go into the properties of that USB hub and disable windows controlling it's power. you will also need to go into Power Profiles and set up a custom profile and tell windows to not shut off power to the USB ports only if you found an entry for the wifi card in a usb hub. you will also need to change the Wifi power settings in there as well.
give that a go and see how it works. if that has not solved the issue then we will look at the actual router. it could be there is an issue there that is causing this problem.
how the whole assigning of IP addresses works is a router/DHCP server hands them out when asked. the devices mac address is registered to that "leased" ip address and when the address is given just like a car you have to give it back after a specific amount of time has passed. this is called TTL or Time To Live. this TTL is usually set to be 1 day. half way through the lease term your computer will decide that it wantes to extend the TTL and will ask to do so. if it is unable to communicate or the DHCP server does not respond it will keep the lease until the end of it's term. then give the address up and fall back to an APIPA address if one cannot be obtained.
So several mechanisms in place here. possible cause can be the drivers. The wifi/usb power settings or the router/DHCP server.
If you want you can go into you router and change the TTL for the DHCP server built into it to a week and see if the problem only occurs when you are half way through. if that is the case then it will make me lean more twords an issue with the router and you may need to upgrade the firmware on it. if it is owned by your ISP then my suggestion is (because the ones the ISP provides are crap) to go and buy a wifi router and have the ISP put the thing into bridged mode. bridged mode will turn off any routing and wifi capabilities of the modem and turn it into just a gateway to get into the internet. If you have Xfinity(Comcast) look at the bottom of your modem. if it is stickered Arris then chances are really good that this is the problem. as the Arris modems only have one use and that is a paper weight. Xfinity does have a different modem available. you will need to contact them and when you get a person on the line (fastest way to achieve this is to simply state "customer service" for everything except the account verification) ask for the Wireless Department. they will ask why. tell them to simply connect you. you may have to give them a brief description but I usually state it's for something that i have been working on with them. These are typically the people that can get the job done. tell them that your Arris modem is dropping wifi connections and it keeps on slowing down under wifi and that you would like to get a Cisco modem. This is typical the cure all for wifi issues related to Xfinity being your ISP. But do not dismiss this if you do not have Xfinity as this Arris modem is used by many ISP's and a similar process is what you would use to obtain a different modem for your ISP.
***EDIT***
Other Note
Does not matter if a driver supports windows 8 or 8.1 if there is a driver for windows 7 x64 then it can also be installed and will work just fine.
so you say the message you get is "Limited Connectivity"
The following is going to seem like a lot but it really is not. but it is best to do while reading this post is to do what it is stating. so copy and paste the post into a text file so that you can read it just in case the page decides to refresh and you don't have a connection. You will not do everything in this post. it's going to be a look for this and if you find it then do this kind of a setup.
The error above can only be cause by one thing and that is that your card was unable to acquire an IP address and is issuing it's self an APIPA address (Automatic Private IP Address).
Now the question why the card cannot obtain one. So we have a couple of things to investigate. I would start with the driver because this is what ultimately controls these things. If the problem does not subside then since the manufacturer is Broadcomm I would specifically go and download the RAW driver form them. A driver that has not been bloated up with "fluff" as i call it from Dell. If it is an exe file use 7zip (downloadable here for x64 http://www.7-zip.org/a/7z1700-x64.exe) and right click the exe file and click on open with 7 zip.
you have a 50/50 shot of it being able to open it.
if you can open it locate the drivers for your specific card and extract them to a folder.
if you are not able to open the exe file. you will launch the executable. then do not do anything else with it. the simple task of opening the exe file has caused it to be extracted to a temp folder. this folder is located in %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp. you can simply enter that into the address bar of your file explorer and it will bring you where you need to go. You are going to have to do a little exploring here. but the easiest way it to sort the folder/files by date. simply click on the header labeled date to do this. it should be the newest folder created. go into that folder locate the driver and copy it to another folder of you choosing. then you can close the install program.
uninstall any drivers that have been installed for the card If you installed any drivers for the card via an exe file then you will uninstall them through Add/Remove programs otherwise use device manager.
then in device manager re scan the computer for new devices. and let windows do it's thing. once it is done. right click on the card and click on update driver and go and locate the ones you extracted and install them. This will install only the driver and no extras. we want to make sure nothing else is interfering.
MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS!!!
**** EDIT****
NOTE: when i state power settings. there are 2 to specifically look for. windows turning the thing off. but also windows can also tell the card to go into a low broadcast power mode which will drop the transmitting range of the wifi card. It does these things when there is no user interaction on the computer. So if you are not physically using the machine that is considered no user interaction. doesn't matter if you are accessing it remotely or not you have to be physically touching the machine for windows to consider it being used. so best to turn those features off if you need access to the laptop remotely.
there are 2 spots depending on how the mainboard is set up. the wifi card internally can either be plugged into a PCIx1 slot or it could be plugged in and use the USB internally. So we want to make sure this is covered in all places. So go into the device manager and in the driver for the card go to the device properties in there you will be able to disable the card being turned off to conserve power. then also look under all of the USB root hubs and see if there is an entry for the card being plugged in. if there is one make sure you go into the properties of that USB hub and disable windows controlling it's power. you will also need to go into Power Profiles and set up a custom profile and tell windows to not shut off power to the USB ports only if you found an entry for the wifi card in a usb hub. you will also need to change the Wifi power settings in there as well.
give that a go and see how it works. if that has not solved the issue then we will look at the actual router. it could be there is an issue there that is causing this problem.
how the whole assigning of IP addresses works is a router/DHCP server hands them out when asked. the devices mac address is registered to that "leased" ip address and when the address is given just like a car you have to give it back after a specific amount of time has passed. this is called TTL or Time To Live. this TTL is usually set to be 1 day. half way through the lease term your computer will decide that it wantes to extend the TTL and will ask to do so. if it is unable to communicate or the DHCP server does not respond it will keep the lease until the end of it's term. then give the address up and fall back to an APIPA address if one cannot be obtained.
So several mechanisms in place here. possible cause can be the drivers. The wifi/usb power settings or the router/DHCP server.
If you want you can go into you router and change the TTL for the DHCP server built into it to a week and see if the problem only occurs when you are half way through. if that is the case then it will make me lean more twords an issue with the router and you may need to upgrade the firmware on it. if it is owned by your ISP then my suggestion is (because the ones the ISP provides are crap) to go and buy a wifi router and have the ISP put the thing into bridged mode. bridged mode will turn off any routing and wifi capabilities of the modem and turn it into just a gateway to get into the internet. If you have Xfinity(Comcast) look at the bottom of your modem. if it is stickered Arris then chances are really good that this is the problem. as the Arris modems only have one use and that is a paper weight. Xfinity does have a different modem available. you will need to contact them and when you get a person on the line (fastest way to achieve this is to simply state "customer service" for everything except the account verification) ask for the Wireless Department. they will ask why. tell them to simply connect you. you may have to give them a brief description but I usually state it's for something that i have been working on with them. These are typically the people that can get the job done. tell them that your Arris modem is dropping wifi connections and it keeps on slowing down under wifi and that you would like to get a Cisco modem. This is typical the cure all for wifi issues related to Xfinity being your ISP. But do not dismiss this if you do not have Xfinity as this Arris modem is used by many ISP's and a similar process is what you would use to obtain a different modem for your ISP.
***EDIT***
Other Note
Does not matter if a driver supports windows 8 or 8.1 if there is a driver for windows 7 x64 then it can also be installed and will work just fine.
If you like the work I have been doing then feel free to
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
Sorry for the delay. I installed the Broadcom driver. No "Limited connectivity" errors for 2 days, but my internet wasn't working properly either. Every couple of minutes it wouldn't work for a few seconds, then resume again (but not limited connectivity exactly). Just now, I got the limited connectivity error again... it's basically a yellow triangle of warning on the icon in the system tray.
I checked the USB hubs and unchecked the boxes too, how do I increase the TTL of the router?
I checked the USB hubs and unchecked the boxes too, how do I increase the TTL of the router?
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kgschlosser
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5190
- Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:43 am
- Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado USA
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
the raising of the TTL is the absolute last thing. and to be honest this problem shouldn't be happening at all..
Did you follow my instructions to the letter?
also did you go to broadcom's website and download newer drivers? i suggest you do that. and also install the drivers in the way i said to..
this is all very important things to do. we want to make sure you have all of the latest bugfixes for the driver. but we also want to make sure it is only the raw driver that is being installed and nothing extra. The reason for this is there are things that are added to the drivers that will cause the network card to scan while it is connected. and it does this to look for a better connection. and if it finds one it can hop over to that connection and then when it realizes there is no internet on that connection it will hop back.. this could be causing the issue you are having with the momentary pauses in your connection. and it could also be causing the limited connectivity problem because each and every time it makes this hop back and forth it has to deal with the whole DHCP thing again.. and something could be getting stuck somewhere.
Does this problem happen while you are physically using the laptop?? because if it is happening while you are using the laptop then it is not going to be a power setting thing. it is going to be somewhere else..
There are a lot of adjustments we can make but we need to isolate which one to make the adjustments to..we have to systematically pick off one thing at a time. And the drivers are always the first in line. make sure you follow those instructions to the letter with a nice fresh set of downloaded broadcom drivers. If you have an issue getting the drivers out of the package (broadcom usually packages them) let me know I will do it and send you the files.
Did you follow my instructions to the letter?
also did you go to broadcom's website and download newer drivers? i suggest you do that. and also install the drivers in the way i said to..
this is all very important things to do. we want to make sure you have all of the latest bugfixes for the driver. but we also want to make sure it is only the raw driver that is being installed and nothing extra. The reason for this is there are things that are added to the drivers that will cause the network card to scan while it is connected. and it does this to look for a better connection. and if it finds one it can hop over to that connection and then when it realizes there is no internet on that connection it will hop back.. this could be causing the issue you are having with the momentary pauses in your connection. and it could also be causing the limited connectivity problem because each and every time it makes this hop back and forth it has to deal with the whole DHCP thing again.. and something could be getting stuck somewhere.
Does this problem happen while you are physically using the laptop?? because if it is happening while you are using the laptop then it is not going to be a power setting thing. it is going to be somewhere else..
There are a lot of adjustments we can make but we need to isolate which one to make the adjustments to..we have to systematically pick off one thing at a time. And the drivers are always the first in line. make sure you follow those instructions to the letter with a nice fresh set of downloaded broadcom drivers. If you have an issue getting the drivers out of the package (broadcom usually packages them) let me know I will do it and send you the files.
If you like the work I have been doing then feel free to
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
The momentary pauses happen even when I'm physically using the laptop. I'm not sure if the limited connectivity error does, as it's not extremely frequent and I haven't been able to test it enough (I think the frequency dropped after I installed the Broadcom drivers though).
I'm not sure sure if I installed the drivers properly - the official Broadcom website was a tad too complicated for me, so I got them from elsewhere. They are labeled "Broadcom" and not "Dell", though. The driver version is the latest I could find, 7.12.39.28. I extracted the file, found the exe, and installed it. I couldn't find the folder in the Temp path you gave me, so I clicked Update Driver in the Device Manager - then "Browse my computer" - and then "Select from a list". I found the Broadcom driver there, so I just selected it. Did I do it wrong? Was I supposed to uninstall the Dell driver first?
Except that, I'm at least a bit sure that I set the power management settings right.
I also noticed two other problems after changing the drivers. First is that I can no longer connect to "192.168.1.1" - this may not be the driver's fault specifically, but I could do it before some months ago. Second, and this is a bit weird - I can't control the laptop properly through LAN.
I have two remote softwares installed on my laptop which I use to control the device from my mobile - TightVNC for LAN, and TeamViewer for external connections. Now I also have an app on my phone which scans my WiFi network for IP addresses as it's changing every few days (I need the IP address to connect locally with VNC). The weird part is that the app doesn't show the laptop connected to WiFi (likewise I also can't connect locally with VNC), but I can still connect externally through TeamViewer. But once I connect through TeamViewer, it shows, and I can connect through the IP address locally. I just can't start with it. Why do you think this happens? This may not be related to the main problem, but I just posted it for possible leads.
I'm really and sorry for this problem, and grateful that you are helping me. Even more so because it isn't even related to EventGhost...
I'm not sure sure if I installed the drivers properly - the official Broadcom website was a tad too complicated for me, so I got them from elsewhere. They are labeled "Broadcom" and not "Dell", though. The driver version is the latest I could find, 7.12.39.28. I extracted the file, found the exe, and installed it. I couldn't find the folder in the Temp path you gave me, so I clicked Update Driver in the Device Manager - then "Browse my computer" - and then "Select from a list". I found the Broadcom driver there, so I just selected it. Did I do it wrong? Was I supposed to uninstall the Dell driver first?
Except that, I'm at least a bit sure that I set the power management settings right.
I also noticed two other problems after changing the drivers. First is that I can no longer connect to "192.168.1.1" - this may not be the driver's fault specifically, but I could do it before some months ago. Second, and this is a bit weird - I can't control the laptop properly through LAN.
I have two remote softwares installed on my laptop which I use to control the device from my mobile - TightVNC for LAN, and TeamViewer for external connections. Now I also have an app on my phone which scans my WiFi network for IP addresses as it's changing every few days (I need the IP address to connect locally with VNC). The weird part is that the app doesn't show the laptop connected to WiFi (likewise I also can't connect locally with VNC), but I can still connect externally through TeamViewer. But once I connect through TeamViewer, it shows, and I can connect through the IP address locally. I just can't start with it. Why do you think this happens? This may not be related to the main problem, but I just posted it for possible leads.
I'm really and sorry for this problem, and grateful that you are helping me. Even more so because it isn't even related to EventGhost...
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kgschlosser
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5190
- Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:43 am
- Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado USA
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
don't be sorry at all. we want to make sure you have the right solution in place for the problem. if we are unable to solve the problem (which does happen) we can at the very least try to provide a band-aide to fix the issue until the manufacturers get things working properly. But we need to know what the exact issue is in the first place.
I have attached a zip file that has the drivers. tho the packaged file stated these were for windows 10 it is highly unlikely that they are only for windows 10. but you can give them a shot. You will uncompress the zip to your desktop simply by copying the files to another folder. then go into add remove programs and uninstall the broadcom driver package you installed.
then go into device manager. if you do not see your wifi card then you will need to scan for hardware located in one of the dropdown menus in the menubar. once your network card appears then you will right click on the network card and click on update driver. select the option to browse your computer and click the browse button navigate to the folder where you decompressed the drivers into and click on next. this should install the driver.
this will install only the raw driver. you should also reboot your router. ot the box that gives you internet. they could be one in the same. I do not know who your internet provider is.
give that a try and see how it goes.
I have attached a zip file that has the drivers. tho the packaged file stated these were for windows 10 it is highly unlikely that they are only for windows 10. but you can give them a shot. You will uncompress the zip to your desktop simply by copying the files to another folder. then go into add remove programs and uninstall the broadcom driver package you installed.
then go into device manager. if you do not see your wifi card then you will need to scan for hardware located in one of the dropdown menus in the menubar. once your network card appears then you will right click on the network card and click on update driver. select the option to browse your computer and click the browse button navigate to the folder where you decompressed the drivers into and click on next. this should install the driver.
this will install only the raw driver. you should also reboot your router. ot the box that gives you internet. they could be one in the same. I do not know who your internet provider is.
give that a try and see how it goes.
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- wifi drivers.zip
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If you like the work I have been doing then feel free to
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
http://puu.sh/wBUOp/eccd9edf66.jpg I think the driver isn't compatible...
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kgschlosser
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5190
- Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:43 am
- Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado USA
Re: Toggling internet connection if not working
That could be a possibility. I am going to send you a PM with my email so you can email me the broadcom package you found
If you like the work I have been doing then feel free to