Moved into a big apartment complex recently and the WiFi here is included with the rent.
Most of my stuff works fine. Laptop, phone, TV, Xbox, Switch. I work from home all week and honestly the connection is usually okay.
But my Steam Frame and Steam Machine absolutely hate it. They’ll connect and work normally, then randomly drop WiFi and refuse to reconnect. Sometimes they even tell me the password is wrong even though it obviously isn’t. Then an hour later the exact same password works again.
The building doesn’t give us routers in the apartments. There are APs/boosters in the hallways and everyone connects to the same managed network.
Is there anything I can actually troubleshoot from my side or am I just screwed because I don’t control the network?
Grab a WiFi analyzer first. NetSpot is decent on a laptop. Check the signal, band, channel and BSSID around your apartment when the Steam stuff is working vs when it starts acting up. Might at least tell you if you’re sitting between two hallway APs or hanging onto a weak one.
@Ok-Organization-58 But I can’t change any of the channels or router settings. Would NetSpot actually help if I don’t have admin access?
You don’t need admin access just to look. You’re not fixing the building network with it. You’re collecting useful info instead of telling support “WiFi bad sometimes”.
If every other device works and only the Steam hardware fails, I’d be looking at the Steam hardware.Especially with the fake “wrong password” message.
@Young_Lefessy Maybe, but “my phone works” doesn’t prove the WLAN is fine for every client. Different clients handle roaming/authentication differently. If OP’s Steam device keeps trying to associate with a different AP/BSSID than the laptop, that’s worth knowing.
@SilverFox Sure, but I’d still open a Steam support ticket at the same time. No reason to pick one theory and marry it.
“Signal boosters in the hallway” is probably not the technical description of what’s actually installed lol. Ask management who runs the WiFi. If it’s a managed AP system, whoever administers it may be able to see failed authentication/association attempts from your device.
@Iron_Throne Yeah, I have no idea what the actual hardware is. We just got an SSID/password when we moved in. I’ll ask the office who manages it.