Acer Aspire V5-573P Unable to connect to wifi

Chelseaneil30
Chelseaneil30 Member Posts: 3 New User

Hi,

 

I have an Acer Aspire V5-573P touchscreen laptop that I've had for around 2 and a half years, the wifi has been completely fine up until a few months ago where I started having trouble connecting to the wifi. My laptop can find the wireless router, but will only connect to it when I am standing right next to it and is unable to connect if I'm more than a meter away. My laptop does this with every router, our wireless is fine as every other laptop can connect and my only solution to get the internet to work is by using the ethernet cable.

 

I have tried updating my laptop, uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers (although it keeps saying my driver is already up to date), changing some of the wireless settings and also using a device that goes in the USB port which is meant for Computers that do not have wireless but this still fails to work.

 

I'm starting to think that there is something wrong with my wireless card in my laptop and that it is faulty, if that is the case I will need to go to a laptop repair shop to see if they can fix it.

 

Any suggestions to fix this problem would be much appreciated!

Answers

  • Bozzy
    Bozzy Member Posts: 44

    Tinkerer

    When you say the USB wifi stick failed to work, is it with the same syptoms? (1 meter away etc)

     

    That's the only piece fo the puzzel that's odd.

     

    I would say the Wifi card has either failed, or one of the antenna wires has come loose / broken. If your laptops under warranty still, ACER will have to fix it. failing that a repair shop can fix it, should be about £60.

     

    If you are feeling brave, pop her open and have a look at the wireless card connectons (free fix), and if that doesn't work, a replacement card (or upgrade) can be had off ebay for 20 / 25 quid.

     

     

  • Chelseaneil30
    Chelseaneil30 Member Posts: 3 New User
    When I tried the USB wifi stick it failed to register it as a wireless device.

    Laptop is no longer under warranty sadly! I'm trying again to reinstall the drivers. For some reason my laptop only has the Atheros driver, could this be the problem?
  • Bozzy
    Bozzy Member Posts: 44

    Tinkerer

    Drivers wouldn't usually affect range, that's more of a hardware issue, if you can connect and it's stable a meter away.

     

    There are other very rare cases wher another failed component is 'noisey' and drowns out the wireless signal, but as I say, that's extremely rare.

     

    Which version of Windows is it?

     

    I would boot up in safe mode, uninstall any drivers from programs and features, then in device manager un-install and remove the wifi drivers and the bluetooth driver (if thery are present) and then reboot and reinstall from Acer support.

     

     

  • Chelseaneil30
    Chelseaneil30 Member Posts: 3 New User
    I'm using windows 10. I updated a driver but now the option for wifi is gone completely! Any ideas this time? Seems I am making it worse for myself!
  • Bozzy
    Bozzy Member Posts: 44

    Tinkerer

    If it's getting that bad, I would copy your important files off the laptop and on to a USB stick / hard disk, and do a Windows 10 refresh to get it back to it's installed condition.

     

    If it's still the same then, I would be near certain it's a hardware issue.