Laptop "sees" much weaker WiFi than phone & other laptop right next to it -- why and what to do?

[DaRuSsIaMaN]

Background: I'm temporarily living in a dorm in Germany because I'm on a fellowship. The internet situation here is atrocious; they don't provide WiFi in the dorms for some reason. I found a neighbor who lives on the floor below me who bought service from an ISP, and was willing to share her WiFi.

This has mostly been okay for me--the signal has been good enough for me to stream music on my laptop. Except today. For reasons that I don't understand (and I'd be happy if someone can explain) this WiFi signal definitely seems to vary in strength--significantly--from time to time, even though I'm sitting at the exact same spot at my desk, using the same laptop.

More to the point, I have two other devices: my phone and a secondary laptop, a Lenovo Yogabook. I had the Yoga sitting on the desk right next to my main laptop, less than a foot away, and its WiFi connection was stable. My phone was showing a signal as "fair" or "poor" but also stable and totally usable--I was browsing with it while holding it right next to my main laptop. So the f*** was my laptop "seeing" such a weak WiFi signal that I wasn't able to even browse? Some of the time wasn't even showing the WiFi SSID because apparently the signal was too weak. I finally went downstairs to the kitchen of my suite--which brings me closer to the WiFi soruce--and now I'm able to use the internet on my laptop! So that pretty much proves that the problem was insufficient signal strength.

BUT, how can it be that both my other devices are able to use the WiFi just fine, but my laptop could not?? Does this simply mean that my laptop has a shitty antenna built into it?

How can the WiFi reception on my laptop be improved? Buying a USB WiFi adapter that has large antennas? Are there any other options?

 

[faugusztin]

Have you checked if your antenna cables didn't get disconnected from the M.2/mPCIe wifi card in your laptop ?

 

[DrLobotomy]

EMI.

I can list off 20 things that are in a dorm that could be causing it.

I would try power settings in BIOS and the OS and then maybe getting a USB Wi-Fi adapter and a 6 ft. USB extension cable so you can 'move' it around to help nail the best 'spot'.

 

[DaRuSsIaMaN]

Have you checked if your antenna cables didn't get disconnected from the M.2/mPCIe wifi card in your laptop ?

If it was disconnected WiFi wouldn't work at all.

 

[DaRuSsIaMaN]

I would try power settings in BIOS and the OS ...

Ah, I totally forgot about this! Thanks for the suggestion. Googling "wifi power settings" yields this page, which suggests that the power settings may make a noticeable difference with WiFi performance. Although I do not have a Killer wireless adapter, the page is helpful as a general guide.

I did have my battery power plan set to maximum power savings... So I'll see if my experience improves with this change.