I've used various USB wireless adapters over the past few years to get internet on my desktop here at home/parents. For the most part they work fine but I've pretty consistently had problems with my desktop over the past 2 years. I've been in and out of the house between here and college. Before I moved out I didn't have problems really and had a Netgear N150 adapter I'd been using with success for a year or so. Whenever I came back I started noticing it just flat dropping and it is still doing it.
My adapter worked fine on my laptop and the rest of the network was fine but my desktop would just randomly kick me to "no internet connection" and no visible connections. This would sometimes be several times in a day or even a month or more in between. I even tried an older Belkin adapter that I had and it acted identically (which it didn't do in the past). I bought a newer Linksys AE1200 last summer and it seemed okay for a while, dropped rarely. After I upgraded to Windows 10 at launch the Linksys adapter stopped working at first and is officially unsupported on 10. Since then it's using the Windows provided driver and not long after started dropping like the Netgear and Belkin did. Both the Netgear and Belkin are Windows 10 supported with an official driver I installed but no change. These drops range widely in frequency over all 3 adapters. I had a period where the Netgear was near constant dropping and then a few months later used it for at least a month or two with no problem. These adapters also work fine on my desktop on other networks.
I've done all the usual reset everything, reboot, reinstall drivers, etc and both adapter works fine in my laptop and other machines as far as I can tell. I did a clean install of Windows 10 and even had tried a clean 7 install before when I was on that. I've also had different motherboards even. Earlier this year our crappy Uverse router was upgraded to a much better one that gives stronger and more consistent signal but the dropping problem remains across the Netgear and Linksys adapters.
What is the strangest part is whenever it happens I can almost always just rip the USB adapter out, immediately replug it, and it connects instantly. I've even swapped the Netgear and Linksys back to back instantly and it still worked. Sometimes a replug doesn't work but it usually will. My brothers desktop doesn't have this problem (even has the same Netgear adapter).
TL;DR
My desktop for whatever reason across 3 adapters, 2+ OS installs, and 2 routers kicks me at random intervals.
I think I need to just buy a good integrated wireless card. Or just drill down a floor. For some brilliant reason ATT put the router in a storage room in the basement.
My brother, who's been living here for the past year said he's had no real problems with the new router since February but when I moved back it's started locking up the whole network at times in addition to the usual random kicks for me at times.
My adapter worked fine on my laptop and the rest of the network was fine but my desktop would just randomly kick me to "no internet connection" and no visible connections. This would sometimes be several times in a day or even a month or more in between. I even tried an older Belkin adapter that I had and it acted identically (which it didn't do in the past). I bought a newer Linksys AE1200 last summer and it seemed okay for a while, dropped rarely. After I upgraded to Windows 10 at launch the Linksys adapter stopped working at first and is officially unsupported on 10. Since then it's using the Windows provided driver and not long after started dropping like the Netgear and Belkin did. Both the Netgear and Belkin are Windows 10 supported with an official driver I installed but no change. These drops range widely in frequency over all 3 adapters. I had a period where the Netgear was near constant dropping and then a few months later used it for at least a month or two with no problem. These adapters also work fine on my desktop on other networks.
I've done all the usual reset everything, reboot, reinstall drivers, etc and both adapter works fine in my laptop and other machines as far as I can tell. I did a clean install of Windows 10 and even had tried a clean 7 install before when I was on that. I've also had different motherboards even. Earlier this year our crappy Uverse router was upgraded to a much better one that gives stronger and more consistent signal but the dropping problem remains across the Netgear and Linksys adapters.
What is the strangest part is whenever it happens I can almost always just rip the USB adapter out, immediately replug it, and it connects instantly. I've even swapped the Netgear and Linksys back to back instantly and it still worked. Sometimes a replug doesn't work but it usually will. My brothers desktop doesn't have this problem (even has the same Netgear adapter).
TL;DR
My desktop for whatever reason across 3 adapters, 2+ OS installs, and 2 routers kicks me at random intervals.
I think I need to just buy a good integrated wireless card. Or just drill down a floor. For some brilliant reason ATT put the router in a storage room in the basement.
My brother, who's been living here for the past year said he's had no real problems with the new router since February but when I moved back it's started locking up the whole network at times in addition to the usual random kicks for me at times.