Laptop causing Wifi issue

[BRINKS78]

Hi all, I have been having shocking wifi issues for the past while, especially during the day.  Long story short I’ve figured out that it is my wife’s work Laptop causing the issues.  As soon as it is booted up, the wifi in the house plummets from approx 400mb to barely 1mb!  As my son is home now during the day for the summer holidays this is causing Friction Lol.  

She sits at a desk close to the BT smart hub 2 and is plugged in via Ethernet cable.  It is a government laptop and lots of the settings are not accessible on it as they have been restricted.  Can anyone shed any light as to why it is crippling our wifi signal? 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@BRINKS78 

Its probably using up all of the available bandwidth, as Ethernet take priority over wireless connections.

Its more likely that she is uploading a lot of data, this will have a detrimental effect on the download speed.

As there are no bandwidth controls on the Smart Hub 2, there is not a lot you can do about it.

If you do not use BT Digital Voice, then a third party router with bandwidth controls may be the answer.

[BRINKS78]

Thanks for the reply.  We have BT fibre 900mb, I thought we should be able to easily run multiple devices at once without issue?  I’m not overly technical but it seems crazy that her laptop is using all the bandwidth and I can’t even browse the web when she is on? 

[Keith_Beddoe]

Its possible there is an issue with her laptop Ethernet port, but as its not hers, there is nothing you can do. Can she not connect using wireless, as that should allow a fairer distribution of bandwidth?

Another better option is to connect her laptop via a slower speed Ethernet switch which only has a maximum bandwidth of 100mb. One port of the switch would connect to a home hub LAN port, and another port connected to her laptop.

Like this on for £7.08 on Amazon. That would be a cheap and easy way to reduce bandwidth.

TP-Link 5-Port Desktop/Wallmount 10/100Mpbs Network/Ethernet Switch, Ethernet SPLITTER, Plastic Case (LS1005)

[Les-Gibson]

What happens if you power your wife's laptop on battery only and with with Ethernet disconnected, does it still kill the Wi-Fi (I'm thinking maybe mains borne interference from the power adapter.

Alternatively, she presumably connects via a VPN tunnel and there are no restrictions on her connecting to your home Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet ?

[BRINKS78]

Thanks, I’ll maybe give this a try!