Hey everyone,
I’m officially out of ideas and need some troubleshooting help. About a week ago, my internet randomly became unusable, even though Windows shows a normal “connected” icon. Most sites time out (“site can’t be reached”), Discord constantly reconnects, and games kick me instantly.
The weird part: My phone’s mobile hotspot works perfectly on this exact same PC. However, my phone also struggles to load anything over the home Wi-Fi when I’m in the same room as the PC.
My Setup:
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OS: Windows 11 Desktop
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Wi-Fi Card: Intel AX210 (with two external antennas)
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Main Router: TP-Link Archer AX55 (in the living room, ~12-14 meters away)
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Obstacles: One brick wall and one metal-backed insulated wall.
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Extender: Cheap dual-band Wi-Fi repeater in the hallway.
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Internet: 500 Mbps fiber (Living room TV streams perfectly).
This setup worked great for 6 months (got around 130–180 Mbps at the PC), but it suddenly died a week ago. Nothing was physically moved.
What I’ve already tried (with zero success):
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Restarted PC, router, and repeater.
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Forgot network, reinstalled Intel Wi-Fi drivers, and did a Windows network reset.
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Changed DNS to 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8.
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Ran ipconfig /release, /renew, and /flushdns (I get a normal 192.168.0.x IP).
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Disabled IPv6.
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Connected an Ethernet cable directly from the repeater to the PC (this actually made it worse—showed wired connection but absolutely no data).
Is my cheap repeater dying silently (broadcasting a strong Wi-Fi signal but failing to route data)? Or can interference through a metal-insulated wall suddenly get this bad? I really want to isolate the issue before dropping cash on a Mesh system.
Any advice on what to test next would be greatly appreciated!
“Connected” only means your PC successfully joined the access point. It doesn’t guarantee that the access point has a working path back to the router or internet.
Sounds like your repeater is the culprit here. It’s likely broadcasting a strong signal to your desktop, but it can’t actually talk to the main router through those insulated walls. Your PC sees a perfect connection, but the repeater itself is completely cut off. Strong Wi-Fi bars don’t mean the actual internet pipeline is working.
Since the hotspot works, the PC itself is probably mostly okay.
I’d use NetSpot before changing more settings. Run Inspector and watch the signal level while walking from the router to your room. Check which BSSID your PC is connecting to, because you may be attached to the hallway repeater without realizing it.
Look at:
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signal strength in dBm
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channel and channel width
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whether nearby networks overlap yours
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whether the signal suddenly drops near the bathroom
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whether your device jumps between the router and repeater
Then do a quick survey if you have a floor plan. A heatmap can show whether the bathroom, pipes, brick wall, or floor is killing 5 GHz.
If you still get zero throughput while standing next to the router with a strong signal, then Wi-Fi coverage isn’t the main problem. At that point, check the router’s WAN status or call the ISP.
@user_Jacob_J Okay, I installed NetSpot and this is already showing stuff I didn’t know existed.
In my room, the network I thought was the main router is around −73 to −78 dBm on 5 GHz. It sometimes jumps to about −65 dBm, then drops again.
The repeater is around −48 dBm, so apparently I’m connecting to that most of the time.
They’re both using channel 44 with an 80 MHz width. There are also four neighboring networks partly covering the same range. One of them is almost as strong as ours upstairs.
On 2.4 GHz, our router and repeater are both on channel 6, and there are something like nine other networks around it.
I turned the repeater off and walked downstairs. Next to the router, NetSpot showed about −31 dBm, which I assume is good, but the speed test still failed twice. On the third attempt, I got 4 Mbps down and almost zero upload.
So I guess the bad signal upstairs is real, but it isn’t the whole problem?
You’ve hit two separate issues here. First, your repeater has a terrible backhaul. It shows full bars to your PC but can’t talk to the router. Second, and more importantly, getting dead internet at −31 dBm right next to the main router means your actual internet feed is down, not just the Wi-Fi.
@user_Jacob_J UPDATE: It was a mix of a bad ISP line and a terrible repeater setup! The ISP tech found a damaged connector in the building’s fiber box, which immediately fixed my baseline speed to 487 Mbps near the router. Upstairs was still slow because the repeater was just screaming a terrible −76 dBm signal very loudly; moving it closer to the router got me back up to a usable 130 Mbps. Long-term plan is a proper mesh system or a wired AP. Thanks, internet wizards!
Nice! This is exactly why using a signal scanner first saves so much time.