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When a specific laptop is turned on all other wireless devices lose their connection but when that laptop is connected to the router with an ethernet cable the connections are all stable. Typically when that laptop is connected via wireless we (3 other laptops and 3 iphones, occasionally more devices) all have connections dropped every minute or more.
I have tried updating the drivers on that laptop but they are already up to date, I've tried so many things that have been suggested but nothing seems to be working other than keeping it plugged into the router constantly which is not an option for us.
The laptop also shows 100% disk usage directly on start-up when nothing else is running. Sometimes stopping Superfetch and Windows Search will help but not for long and sometimes not at all, not sure if this is related to the problem but I figured I'd throw that in here as well. It's a Windows 8 Lenovo y580 laptop, only a couple years old. I have the exact same laptop for myself with Windows 7 and it's a year older with no problems.
I'm hoping someone has an idea of what to do here because everything is pretty much garbage once that laptop is connected to wireless.
1Test this: Buy a cheap USB wifi dongle,keep the laptops native wifi off and just use the dongle. – cybernard – 2014-12-23T18:29:51.790
1First thought - check for botnet activity – Tetsujin – 2014-12-23T19:19:17.277
Yeah, sounds like a virus to me. – imtheman – 2014-12-23T19:37:42.230
@cybernard The dongle works! We all have no problems with wifi while the laptop is connected to it. Any idea what the problem is with the laptop then? The dongle is kind of bulky so I don't want to keep it connected forever and I'd rather just get the entire laptop fixed. Is it just a faulty network card? – Jesse – 2014-12-24T01:30:42.643
Avast also picked up two "viruses" but I'm pretty sure those were just torrented games key bypasses or something not actual viruses, but they were fixed either way. – Jesse – 2014-12-24T01:32:51.013
@Jesse Yes, the laptop is using an old frequency spectrum overlapped by your newer devices. Called a,b,g,n and etc. You may or may not be able to reconfigure your laptop to operate on a newer wifi spectrum. You will have to identify the exact wifi card built-in to your laptop to know if you can change it. You can also try checking the software advanced settings. Ideally you want g or n. – cybernard – 2014-12-24T01:58:43.333
@cybernard That would make sense, except for my personal laptop has the same network card as the one that isn't working. They are both Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2220. Is this still the problem? If so, how would I go about fixing it? Would installing a new network card help because I am honestly hating this thing haha – Jesse – 2014-12-24T02:10:01.213
If they are exactly the same then you should be able to reconfigure it for g or n or whatever works. – cybernard – 2014-12-24T02:31:09.200