Hit and miss wifi hotspot connection Swift 3

Heliox
Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
edited November 2023 in 2020 Archives
Hi there
I have a Swift 3 and travel quite a bit. I have found that in some hotels my laptop will connect to the hotel wifi but most times it wont connect. It's nothing to do with the settings on the laptop as the last two hotels I stayed in I got in touch with the hotel IT and they did something. Not sure what they did but both times they asked for my MAC code.
Does anyone else have this problem?

Regards
Steve

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    Did they fix it when they had your MAC address? If so it was on their end, likely they were oversubscribed in the DHCP server and just forced yours in by replacing one entry that wasn't being used.
    If they didn't fix it, does it matter how close you are to the access point? You can test at home by moving closer to and farther from your router. You should see a potential for reduced speed as you move away, but not so much that you loose connection without heading into the yard or the neighbor's place. :)
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    Hi Billsey,
    Yes it did work but not too sure if it was the MAC code that did it. In all hotels I have had no problem connecting my phone so the internet is there it's just that my laptop cant connect. In the last hotel there were 4 other colleagues with me and all had no problem connecting up and yet my laptop wouldn't. Very frustrating 

    Steve
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    OK, which model of Swift 3 do you have? Should be something like SF315-52-xxxx. Have you tried uninstalling the drivers, then letting the system reinstall on a reboot?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    HI Billsey,

    The laptop number is SF314-54-81Q1.

    I have deleted and installed the drivers and checked that they are all up to date
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    Next step is to look at the signal levels the system is seeing. Download WiFi Analyzer from the Microsoft Store and run it. Move your laptop to various locations in your house and see how much the signal level changes based on distance from your router, note the dBm for different distances.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    Hi Billsey
    Just checked into another Hotel .... same problem seems I'm connected to the router as usual but I get no further getting their IT to have a look. Starting to think my next laptop will not be an Acer  :)
  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,322 Trailblazer
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  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    The settings are as per the information you gave me but still not connected this is what i'm getting
    I have been in contact with an IT company and it seems that their servers are not recognising my computer so what they do is get my MAC code and then allow access to the server. My problem now is what is it on my computer that is stopping them from recognising my laptop



  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    When in that state, with a connection to the network but no internet access, open a command prompt and capture the results of an "ipconfig /all", then capture the results of a "nslookup acer.com". Let's try to see what's really going on... You can edit out the any adapters that aren't the WiFi connection and some of your MAC address so it isn't shared publicly. Here's what mine looks like right now:
    C:\Users\bills>ipconfig /all

    Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi 2:

       Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 #2
       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 38-DE-AD-xx-xx-xx
       DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
       Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
       Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::6d86:eb07:c838:c47e%10(Preferred)
       IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.7.7.13(Preferred)
       Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
       Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, August 21, 2020 3:45:47 AM
       Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, August 28, 2020 6:48:03 AM
       Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.7.7.254
       DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.7.7.254
       DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 523820717
       DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-24-87-94-AC-38-DE-AD-B9-DC-69
       DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.7.7.254
       NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

    C:\Users\bills>nslookup acer.com
    Server:  UnKnown
    Address:  10.64.0.1

    Non-authoritative answer:
    Name:    acer.com
    Address:  195.245.123.200


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  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    HI Billsey,

    Here is the information you requested

    Wireless LAN adapter WiFi:

       Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
       Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265
       Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 94-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX
       DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
       Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
       IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.43.47(Preferred)
       Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
       Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 28 August 2020 09:58:04
       Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 28 August 2020 10:58:04
       Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.43.1
       DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.43.1
       DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.43.1
       NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    That all looks pretty normal, they are giving you a one hour lease, so they are likely not running out of reservation space and they are routing all DNS requests through the access point. What did the nslookup show?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    Yes strange i've just tried the nslookup with no luck it comes back as DNS timed out. But i am now offshore on a vessel so the connection might be a bit flakey

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    A DNS timeout definitely gives a symptom of no internet. One thing to try at that point is from a command prompt:
    ping 8.8.8.8
    That tries to connect to a Google DNS server and bypasses your local DNS. If that works then the issue is with DNS rather than the rest of the network stack.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    I've just pinged it and came back fine. I've re-done the NSlookup again and got the following

    C:\Users\steve>nslookup acer.com
    Server:  UnKnown
    Address:  103.86.99.99

    Non-authoritative answer:
    Name:    acer.com
    Address:  195.245.123.200

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    So DNS is working fine and IP access is also working. Have you done any current virus scans? There might be something stepping into the network stack...
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    Thanks Billsey
    I've done regular scans but this has been going on for some while now I think i'll leave it at the moment as i'm offshore so can't really test things out, that'll be when i move into another hotel. One thing i might try is to uninstall my anti-virus software and then try. So as i said i'll leave it for now and if it's OK restart this thread when i'm ready to restart? Thanks for all your help so far.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    Yeah sure. Ping me with an @ sign and we'll revisit it.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    OK Billsey Will do
  • Heliox
    Heliox Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter
    Good morning Bullseye. Its me again your helping me with my storage device. A while ago you were helping me with a problem I had connecting my Laptop to Hotel wifis (see thread above) well I'm back at work and in a Hotel and my laptop has connecting ted no problem.
    I had an email from Acer support who recommended i take my laptop back to factory settings,  so while I was hope and with time on my hands I did this and it seems to work. The problem was there all the time as I could never connect my laptop via WiFi to my printer at home but as soon as reset the laptop it worked fine. 

    Regards
    Steve
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,219 Trailblazer
    Great! So things seem to working good now?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

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