USB WiFi adapters in conflict?

[pidgeonpost]

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.  

[WSH]

What version is the firmware?

[pidgeonpost]

Thanks  - version is v0.44.00.04123-BT. 

[WSH]

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.

[pidgeonpost]

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

[WSH]

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.

[pidgeonpost]

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.

[gg30340]

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.

[pidgeonpost]

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. ☹️

[pidgeonpost]

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.