Can't use internet on my laptop any more

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I use Windows 7 because I like to play certain games that won't load on Windows 10.
But since yesterday I suddenly have no internet access on my laptop any more, even though I did before yesterday.

It's not my router, because the internet still works fine on my iPhone. But whenever I set the name of the router and password on my laptop it just doesn't connect at all. It doesn't even find it. I go to the network and sharing center and it just says "no internet connections". Even if I use my phone as a hotspot, it still won't give me any internet on my laptop. The antivirus has ran out yesterday, but needs internet to update it, which I can't get access to.

Anyone know why?

Although I use my iPhone to go on the internet, I still need my laptop to download songs, because it's the only way I can download songs for free. So I'm frustrated. Why does technology work fine one day and then the next day it suddenly decides to just not work for no reason?

My laptop wifi connection drops thousands of times a day, every day. I don't know why but I've learned to just live with it and keep refreshing or standing on my head in awkward positions until it connects. It's never totally quit before. I wish I could help you but I'm clueless about tech. I assume there's some sort of receptor in laptops that must get faulty?

Ideas, anyone?

Both wifi and Cellular internet use a radio / electromagnetic radiation. The signal has to get from your phone to the tower - or from your laptop to the wifi router. Most iPhones can switch over to cellular if wifi isn't working, or to wifi is cellular is not working. Most laptops have to use wifi only (but you can get a cellular modem / USB stick - or you can set your iPhone to be a "hot spot" which means the laptop things that it is a wifi router, and the signal is passed along to the cellular tower by the iPhone. Also if your router is new and your laptop is old - or if it is reverse and your laptop is new but your router is old - they may not talk nicely to each other. I had a problem with my wife's laptop where when she went on VPN her wifi connection would keep dropping or hanging. I had to upgrade the firmware on the wifi router - there was a bug with UDP packets (which the VPN used) that didn't happen with TCP packets (which non-VPN web pages used). The VPN flooded the router with UDP packets and when the queue overflowed it would kick over and die.

So that might answer "why" - what to do? Get a new laptop OR get a new wifi router OR get your cellular company to agree to let you turn your iPhone into a wifi hot-spot OR get a cellular modem/usb stick OR a usb wifi dongle (which is like upgrading your laptop but without the whole new laptop - or call your internet provider and complain and see if they can make some other more specific suggestion and help you troubleshoot the issues.

For Pandemic I got a new router and called my internet provider and got a faster connection - because with everyone in the house telecommuting and cyberschooling at the same time we were all using up each other's bandwidth and things got slow or balky or both.

When it stops working we turn off the router in the basement slowly count to ten and then turn it back on again - that usually fixes it. If not we call the internet provider and they fix. From time to time I fix stuff or upgrade stuff - but not when I am at work or busy with other things.

YMMV

It's hard to get a new laptop that has Windows 7 on, or one with a disc tray.


My wifi router is actually new, well I had it a couple of months but the internet on my laptop worked fine with the new router until yesterday.


I tried that, the laptop won't pick up any possible connections.


Probably the best solution.


No because those people always have foreign accents that I can't understand and I don't have the patience.

Does your laptop have a switch that disables wifi? One or two of my laptops do, and I've accidentally clicked them to the 'off' position once or twice while handling the laptop. Maybe worth looking closely at the sides and front of your laptop to see if there is one of these (they can be quite small and difficult to spot). Out of interest, what model is your laptop?

Last edited by DeepHour on 06 May 2022, 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

What about an ethernet cable so that you can plug your laptop into your router?

Though the last two posts are basically the next steps there's one more thing: did you accidentally turn off wifi within windows, or activate airplane mode?
When you right click on the symbol in the bottom right corner of the screen and go to properties, you should get the wifi adapter options in the system settings... Is your wifi adapter still enabled?

If all these things are fine, I'd try the cable next, tbh. But then, I already have some of those lying around ...

Did you get it working?