Odd Wi-Fi network problem

[Daveman]

So we're on vacation vacation staying at a rental condo. Rental paperwork had instructions and password for the Wi-Fi network named KC102-5G. Network is secured but not hidden, all our phones and tablets are connected just fine. My wife's laptop running Win10 also connected just fine. There's also a network named KC102 but none of us can connect to that with the password given.

Today my wife's laptop no longer sees KC102-5G. It doesn't show up on her list and trying to setup a connection manually doesn't work either. All our other devices can still see and connect to it just fine. Tried the obvious things like disabling her Wi-Fi adapter and re enabling, checking drivers, rebooting, etc. Haven't tried rebooting the router as it's an odd setup that's also part of some IP television service and I don't want to chance screwing that up.

Googling this issue is difficult as it usually turns up more general issues like making sure the network is up and not private and so on. Anything stupid that I'm missing?

[Victoria Raverna]

Is there a wireless/wifi switch on the laptop? Maybe it is off?

[gilraen]

In the command prompt window, run

netsh wlan show drivers

In the output, look for the line 'Radio types supported' - what does it say?

[Daveman]

There is and it's on. She's connecting to my phones hotspot for now, and can still see all of the Wi-Fi networks in the area, but not the one we should be able to use.

She was connected to it the first night, all of our other devices are still connected to it, but now it's gone from her list in Win10. Can't figure it out.

[LordMortis]

If your machine can connect to a hot spot that suggests the wifi is working.

It's weird you can't see the network but you can see others. This puts me in one of two frames of mind.

1) You have an OEM network manager doing weird things.
2) Forgetting networks can sometimes act as voodoo.

As I can't see what what you have for a network mananger, I suggest forgetting the network. This works differently on different Windows 10 builds.

In 1903, click on on your network icon in the system tray
Click on network and internet settings
Click on WiFi
Click on Manage known networks
Find KC102-5G
Click Forget

See if it appears again. (You may or may not also be able to glean about how it is connected the network this way through properties)

[Daveman]

OK, I ran that command and the supported types are:

802.11b 802.11g 802.11n

A quick look at the network device from CenturyLink says it's an 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi router. Turns out I was mistaken, my wife has never seen this specific Wi-Fi network on her list... I thought she had said it was there the other day and was then gone.

So it sounds like even though her laptop supports 802.11n it's just not receiving the signal from this router?

[gilraen]

Silly question: if you go to the network adapter properties > Configure > Advanced - in the list of properties, does it have the 802.11n mode? Is it enabled?

I know you said you already checked drivers, but since the problem is only with the 5Ghz band, this really seems like a problem with the 802.11n driver being somehow messed up. If you haven't yet, I'd uninstall and reinstall it.

[LordMortis]

Nevermind on my stuff then. It was based on the idea that you connected and then *poof* the network was gone.

My best guess is that if you can't see the network it's being drowned by a different SSID on the same frequency but that's weak guess.

Here is the first thing I found using the phenomena as you describe it now

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook- ... -p/4446552

I can't speak to its meaningfulness. It's not a problem I've encountered before. It's beyond me expertise but if your condo is in a different country? *shrug*. It's doubly difficult when it feels like there are more questions to ask, like can she see any wifi networks? What is the make and model of the laptop, etc... It's also not unheard of laptops/drivers to not be equipped to see networks of the 5ghz frequency.

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to/ne ... p-3608743/

Again, no experience here. I'm at the google stage of curious. Especially as I have three SSID network projectors that on 5ghz and it never occured to me a modern laptop might only see 2.4 ghz, so you are raising my awareness.

[Biyobi]

Especially as I have three SSID network projectors that on 5ghz and it never occured to me a modern laptop might only see 2.4 ghz, so you are raising my awareness.

I ran into this while on vacation over Christmas. The AirBnB we stayed at only shared its 5ghz network and my wifes (couple years old) HP laptop couldn't see it, as well as all of our Kindles. We lucked out because a friend of ours (who travels for work often) had loaned us his "Apple Travel Kit" that has an Airport Express and Apple TV pre-configured to its wifi so I just had to plug it into the hosts router. We all connected, and my wife and I weren't limited to incomprehensible German TV.

[Kasey Chang]

Routers usually separate the 2.4 GHz and 5GHz band SSIDs. So the "-5G" is the 5GHz access point. I do the same on my network.

They can have the same password, but don't have to be.

I've seen some devices that don't want to recognize the 5G access points. Or they did at one time, but not at others. Usually, a reboot will cure the problem, at least for a while. Cheaper tablets, for example, only want to talk 2.4GHz.

At other times, the router itself can have a bug that ruined the connection for one or the other access points. I think my old NetGear had to be reset about once a week. It's gotten to the point where I actually have an IR remote switch that I can turn it on/off without walking into the room.

If ALL you have is the 5GHz access, you need a "travel router" and a hardwire Ethernet connection that creates a 2.4 GHz network for your own use.

[Jaymon]

Yes the 2.4g and 5g are broadcast seperatly. some of the older or cheaper devices in my house cannot see the 5g connectivity.