This topic

USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 19:41:58 GMT

Hi - I'm in the process of setting up a second desktop PC which will eventually replace an elderly one, and I'm having connectivity problems.

Both machines work fine while on Ethernet connections via netplugs, but there's some sort of conflict going on when both are on WiFi.

The symptoms I get are an inability to browse the web, though 'ping' tests work perfectly with no timeouts. Sometimes both machines browse perfectly for anything from a few minutes to several hours before the screen shows I've lost internet access. Restarting the machines or rebooting the hub resets things for a while, as does rebooting the PCs. Resetting the adapter doesn't seem to fix it. This applies to both machines.

The BT hub is a Smart Hub 2, and the stats show that the firmware was updated on 10th December, though I don't think the f/w update is necessarily anything to do with it as I was having the problem previously. The hub itself isn't in the best place but it's where the master socket is and it's where BT insisted on putting it some years ago. There's a BT saucer within a few feet of both systems.

The hub manager says both PCs are on 2.4GHz Channel 6.

That's all I've gleaned up to now. Any ideas please folks?

P.S. There are also 2 mobile phones using the hub, a printer, smart TV, Amazon Fire adapter, Amazon tablet, and an Internet radio, but it's only the 2 PCs that have the problem, and only on WiFi.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

WSH — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 20:05:37 GMT

What version is the firmware?

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 20:34:06 GMT

Thanks - version is v0.44.00.04123-BT.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

WSH — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 20:43:51 GMT

Thanks for that.

As far as your problem goes, I agree it is unlikely to be the firmware. It sounds suspiciously like both machines are getting the same IP address when they connect by wireless.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 21:28:20 GMT

I'm 90% sure that they were different when I did screen grabs earlier today, but I'll double check tomorrow.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

WSH — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 21:36:13 GMT

It's possible if there is a conflict that one of them is dropping back to a 169.254 APIPA address. That will stop it talking to the outside world.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:22:20 GMT

I thought I may have got to the bottom of this but it seems not.

A couple of days ago I swapped the Realtek WiFi adapter from the old system to the new, putting the TPLink adapter from the new system into the old PC in an effort to narrow the fault down. Problem persisted so I took the new system back to scratch and restored it from the recovery partition to get a clean start. Problem still there.

It wasn't until later that I discovered that when I reloaded Windows I must have still had the Realtek adapter installed so the Realtek drivers were loaded but the TPLink adapter was installed. Could this be a contributing factor? Not sure. Again it seems not as the problem is still there despite loading the latest drivers from the TPLink website. PCs and hub have been powered off/on multiple times while trying to resolve this.

What does seem certain is that this is a WiFi problem of some sort because when both systems are on Ethernet there's no problem with browsing. Next move is to try one system on wifi while the other is on ethernet then reverse them. Not getting much time to play with things at the moment.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

gg30340 — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 14:34:24 GMT

When you set up the "new" PC did you give it the same name as your "old" PC? If so try changing its name.

Do you have the problem if there is only one of the PC's on the network?

If you only have the "new" one connected does it work OK.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 16:27:39 GMT

Thanks. No, the systems have default and unique names, and yes, wifi is unusable now even with just one system online.

The wifi situation seems to have become worse, to the extent that I can't now even get the older system stable on wifi. Rather than trying to diagnose or fix two systems simultaneously, the new system is powered down until I'm sure that the oldie is stable on both wifi and ethernet.

The oldie was connected up via ethernet (thankfully I still have the netplugs) at around 0700 this morning and was monitored for browsing over around 4 hours. Response was good, no disconnections.

I then used this BT video to reset/repair the hub and disc. This reported that 'performance could be improved'. BT restarted the hub and texted me to reply 'CALLBACK' if I still had problems.

I then shut system down, unplugged e'net cable and reverted to wifi to see if anything BT had done had been beneficial. It hadn't, and if anything was a tad worse, to the point where the system was esentially unusable with endless drop-outs on wifi. At this point I needed to use the system to actually do something so it was back onto e'net and at 1200 I replied 'CALLBACK' to BT. At 1209 I got a text from the BT Diagnostics bot to say that the case had been passed to one of the BT Guides to call me back. There was a current wait time of 10 minutes but as of 1620 no-one has called.

Later I may try firing up the new machine via e'net to see if they will co-exist on e'net.

BT wifi has been a right royal pain in the bum in our house for years. I was assured that Halo would resolve any signal problems, but here I am again paying for a service which I can't use. ☹️

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 20:10:59 GMT

An update!

Both systems coexist and live happily on enet. Ran them together for hours.
Old system works fine on WiFi - I think.
New system - still WiFi problems.

The USB adapter plugged in the new system is a TPLink one but Windows keeps defaulting to the Realtek adapter that was present when Windows was first installed.

I've tried the usual methods for getting rid of the Realtek device and drivers via system Manager, network settings, you name it, and it appears to have gone. I can then install the TPLink adapter drivers and all is hunkydory. For a while. I can do a restart, I can do a shutdown and restart, and ipconfig/all shows the TPLink adapter. Then, just after the system had been to sleep for a while THE B****Y REALTEK ADAPTER IS BACK!

I've even deleted one of the two Realtek driver files in System32 (Windows won't let me delete the other one).

I'm beginning to think I'll give wifi a miss for now and get the system up and running permanently on enet until I've got time to pick up on it again.

BTW, BT didn't ever call me back but they may have turned the wick up a bit in the exchange because performance did improve for a while.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

Crimliar — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 00:26:51 GMT

Short of physically removing the Realtek hardware you'll not manage to remover the drivers. What you actually need to do is to disable the device:

Control Panel > Network and Sharing Centre > Change Adapter Settings (left hand menu)

On the page you can then right click on the adapter and disable it!

*I suspect this will fix your issue!

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 07:39:40 GMT

Thanks. I'll have a look later, but the Realtek adapter was physically removed and replaced with the Tplink one a while back. I've been around the loop of disabling and uninstalling the Realtek device a number of times via the software and it appears to have worked, i.e. ipconfig /all shows no WiFi adapter. I then run the TPlink install which installs cleanly and works fine - until the Realtek one gatecrashes the party again.

I could forget using WiFi at all on this system as enet is an easy option, but as an (ex) Windows Systems Manager it's really bugging me that I can't resolve this seemingly basic problem 😅.

This system isn't fully set up yet and I'm seriously considering reinstalling W11, this time making sure I have the correct adapter plugged in before I start!

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

Crimliar — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 18:03:57 GMT

It's likely that the TP-Link adapter uses a Realtek chipset. Would it be possible to remove the physical device - so there is no physical WiFi device in the system at all. Then connect the computer to the router using a cable, before reinstalling the WiFi device and just letting your OS load the (probably Realtek) device drivers.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:27:02 GMT

Thanks for that. You may be right about the Realtek chipset (see below), but it's not something I know much about. This is what I did a couple of days ago.

Disabled then Uninstalled the Realtek adapter, selected option to uninstall drivers.
Installed the Tplink adapter and ensured that it showed in Computer Management.
Selected Reset, and as soon as the process began I physically removed the TPLink adapter.
On completion of the Reset no WiFi adapter was shown.
I ran the TPLink installation again and so far 🤞 there have been no spontaneous reincarnations of the Realtek drivers.

Having said that, I'm not using WiFi yet as I haven't the time to get drawn into more troubleshooting at the moment.

What makes me wonder about the Realtek involvement is that of the 4 TPLink driver files installed, one is named 'rtwlanu.sys'. Google tells me this is a Realtek driver file. It's also been linked to BSOD it seems.

Once the Christmas and New Year stuff calms down I can get on the case again. Thanks for your interest.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

WSH — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:47:54 GMT

The first thing to do is check with TP-Link’s website that you have the latest drivers. The ones that came with the device are often out of date before they leave the factory. (My apologies if you’ve already done that).

Incidentally, if you go to remove the Realtek driver again and it won’t let you it’s because the driver is in use. If you go into services and stop it, you should be able to remove it then.

Re: USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

pidgeonpost — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 17:07:20 GMT

Thanks. I can't remember the exact route I took to select this driver, but it's the one which seemed most likely on their website. From memory, there were 3 on offer and I think one was a non-starter for some reason so I just chose what I thought was the latest. Again from memory, I think the website refers to a version of the adapter which is a suffix to the model number. My model number is TL-WN725N, and I think version number should follow the final 'N'. As you can see from the pic there isn't one. But...for now it's working as it should. I'm not going to explore how well the two systems now coexist on WiFi as ultimately the later one will be the only one.

Thanks too for the tip on stopping the service - I'd entirely forgotten that option.

Well I'll leave it at that for now and see how WiFi performs. I'm still not sure I'm out of the woods as far as BT is concerned but it was pointless pursuing things further until I know my own kit is behaving itself.

Thanks all. 👍😊