Acer Chromebook cb315-3ht USB impacting WIFI

VJP

Yesterday and out of the blue, my Chromebook WIFI signal started to drop. Brought the laptop in Feb this year so it's 3 months old. Doesn't move around much, certainly hasn't been knocked. I tried all the usual support recommendations following Google searches nothing worked. Another ASUS Chromebook is connecting to the AP no issues. Eventually after a frustrating day I decided to move the laptop off my desk to get it out of eye line, unplugged both USB connections (one is a bluetooth keyboard / mouse, the second a wireless headset)... And the wifi started working. Through process of elimination I have found that anything plugged into the USB on the left of the keyboard creates some form of interrupt to the WIFI on the laptop. I've tried with different devices plugged in; the keyboard, a USB drive, the headset - same result. I don't know how these laptops are constructed. Could it be a hardware issue / fault on that side or a firmware incompatibility between the USB port and wireless card? Any clues?

billsey

Well, that doesn't make sense... I was initially thinking it was interference between the dongles plugged in on the left and the WiFi/Bluetooth antennas, but both antennas are off to the right, not left. The WiFi card itself is in about the center of the laptop, plugged into the right edge of the MB. The left side ports are directly soldered to the MB, the right are on a daughter card with a cable running over, so again if it were a hardware issue with the cable it's be on the other side. A headset or wireless keyboard dongle isn't going to pull enough current to hurt anything else so it shouldn't be a power issue. The design of the ports on both sides are essentially the same. Sorry to say you likely should go ahead and contact Acer support to they can suss the problem out and get it fixed for you.