Acer Swift 3 keeps dropping the connection - There is NO POWER OPTION

Dear All,

please I am at the end of my rope. I need this laptop to work. I need to have skype and zoom meetings and I cannot do it BECAUSE THE WIFI KEEPS DROPPING. The meeting gets disconnected, I reopen it again and in 2 minutes it gets disconnected AGAIN. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I CANNOT complete my job. My ipad and Adroid have no issue connecting to the wifi and DO NOT DROP IT. But I cannot just use them for my meetings as I need files that I can display only in my laptop.

YES I have read all the other posts about dropping wifi. All my drivers are updated (I bought it around 2 weeks ago). Many of them suggested to change the POWER option to HIGH PERFORMANCE or to make sure the wifi does not get cut off during POWER SAVER MODE. Well, I have NONE of those options available! I only have BALANCED or ACER. Period. And in neither one of that I can modify what happens to the wireless connections. The only things I can modify in those options are when I want the laptop to go to sleep and when the display will turn off. I can create another plan, but even in this "customizable plan" only asks me about display and sleep mode. Nothing else.

I had this laptop for 2 weeks only. It is driving me crazy to the point that I am considering bringing it back to the store and NEVER EVER in my life get another ACER laptop because of the HELL I am going through right now. The "WIFI 6 Ultra Fast Wireless Speed" right now sounds like a really bad joke. Sorry for the rant, as I said, I am at the end of my rope. Thanks you so much in advance to anyone that can pull me out of my misery.

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AnhEZ28

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/27/ygbd99yowun8.png

You can go to edit plan setting, choose Change advanced power settings, look for the wireless adapter setting, you can change between 4 options for both battery and AC mode.

Athwart

This looks very much like a driver problem. If your laptop is new, it very likely still has old drivers dating back to when the OS image was created. Even with a Windows update, you may not have the latest drivers.

You don't say what the model number is (e.g. Swift SF3xx-xx-xxx) or which wi-fi adapter you have. I'll assume it's an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AXnnn. Try the following:
1. Open Device Manager (Win key + X)
2. Select Network Adapters then select the item titled something like Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 nnnn xxxx.
3. Double click on that to display the properties then select the Driver pane.
4. Note the Driver name, Driver version & Driver date.
5. Do a Google search of the Driver name. You should see a search result starting with downloadcenter.intel.com.
6. Follow that link and look for the entry titled "Windows 10 Wi-Fi Drivers for Intel Wireless Adapters". If the driver version and date are more recent than what is shown in device manager, you need to install the latest version.
7. Click on the link for "Windows 10 Wi-Fi Drivers for Intel Wireless Adapters" then download the file under "WiFi_nn.nn.nn_Driver64_Win10.exe"
8. Run the .exe file and your drivers will be automatically updated to the latest version. Do a re-boot and see if that has fixed your connection issues.

If you already have the latest version or the driver update fails to fix the problem, I can suggest some other things to try but they are a bit hit and miss so try the driver update first.

OnlyMelody

AnhEZ28 said:

You can go to edit plan setting, choose Change advanced power settings, look for the wireless adapter setting, you can change between 4 options for both battery and AC mode.

Thank you for your prompt reply! Unfortunately, there is no wireless adapter option on the windows that appear in my laptop. Here is my screenshot of it. I hope this helps:

billsey

We really need to know what computer you have before we can give any more detailed advice. "Swift 3" covers a huge number of models over many years. Your model number should be something like SF3xx-xxx-xxxx. Which WiFi adapter is in your laptop? Which driver version is installed? How many other SSIDs are using your channel?

OnlyMelody

Dear All,

thank you very much for your prompt replies and precious assistance!

Yes, mine was a Intel Wi-Fi 6 AXnnn. I tried the suggested modifications, but they did not solve the issue. I even tried reinstalling Windows but nothing. Neither Malwarebytes nor Norton could find any virus. My Iphone and Ipad connect to the internet at home and do not drop the connection, so the problem was in the computer, not in the wifi. I got this laptop because I have to work with Zoom and Skype, therefore it was not doing what I bought it for. If I get a new laptop, I expect it to be actually working. I would have understood if it required an easy fix like updating drivers or changing the power mode. But not something that took DAYS to try to fix, multiple attempts, even messing with the register. Needless to say, it cut time out of my job, which cannot happen. I did not buy a new laptop to lose DAYS trying to make it work properly. In the end, I brought the ACER back to the store and got a different laptop, of a different maker. I chose ACER since it was highly recommended to me, but this whole experience has been a HUGE LETDOWN. I appreciate very much this community and all your help, that's why I came back to the forum to thank you. But ACER has lost a customer here. Acer better be looking into this issue because if other customers find themselves in my situation of having a laptop that they use for their job quit working after ONLY 2 WEEKS with no easy fix, they are going to be swamped with returns.

billsey

You still haven't told us which laptop model you have, or even which WiFi chips is being used. There are pretty big differences between the AX200 and AX201 drivers. What router do you have? Is it also running 802.11ax or is using an earlier technology (ac or n or ???)?

guinea125

Created an account just to post this because I was having the exact same problem with my new Acer Swift 3 and hopefully this can help someone else. Internet was cutting out very often when connected to my older router. It cut out less frequently when connected to the hotspot from my fairly new phone, but it still cut out. I don't know that much about computers so I'll try to dumb this down for others like me

Scroll down to the bottom if you don't care about the explanation.

(It's a 2-minute fix.)

First of all, Athwart's reply was very helpful. I followed those steps exactly, and figured out that my wi-fi driver was MediaTek WiFi 6 MT7921. I googled this, expecting to find a website where I can download or check the newest driver, but instead I found lots of forums complaining about this specific driver.

It turns out that this new laptop I bought is a pretty fancy gaming laptop. The MediaTek driver is, by default, set to use the newest type of WiFi - 802.11ax (don't know if I'm explaining that properly, but that's how I understood it). The problem is, many routers are incompatible with 802.11ax, because it's so new. I Googled my exact router model, and found the manual online. It turns out that my router could not even support 802.11ac (the predecessor of 802.11ax), which has been around since about 2013. It can only support 802.11n or older. Maybe 802.11n is a problem for super-gamers and video game creators, but I put my other computer through a lot of downloading, multiple tabs open, several programs open at once... and I've always had fast Wi-Fi with (what I assume to be) 802.11n on my old computer. So I don't care about this "ax", "ac" or "n" stuff.. as long as my internet doesn't cut out!!

Now for the fix. If you know what I'm talking about and you want the newest and trendiest Wi-Fi, you'll have to get a new router that supports Wifi 6 and 802.11ax. If, however, you are just a regular person and all you care about is your Wifi not cutting out... then just use 802.11n. It's less than a 2-minute fix!

First, follow steps 1-3(ish) from Athwart's comment above:
"1. Open Device Manager (Windows key + X)
2. Select Network Adapters then select the item titled something like [MediaTek] Wi-Fi 6 nnnn xxxx.
3. Double click on that to display the properties then select the" Advanced tab.

Then:
4.There should be a small dropdown menu on the right labelled "Value".
5. Click on that dropdown menu, which will almost certainly be set, by default, to 802.11ax. Change it to 802.11n.
6. Click OK.

That's it! After I did this, my Wi-Fi has not cut out once!!

billsey

Between #3 and #4 you want to use the Property drop down to select something like 802.11n/ac/ax Wireless Mode, it might not be the first item in the list.

guinea125

True, that dropdown might be located in different places on different systems. On my computer it showed as "Value" but in others it might show as "Property" or something else.

billsey

There are two drop down menus on that tab, the Value drop down is different for each entry in the Property drop down.

Zeldarocks85

I've got the Acer Swift X SFX14-41G-R1S6 Creator Laptop | 14" Full HD 100% sRGB | AMD Ryzen 7 5800U | NVIDIA RTX 3050Ti Laptop GPU | 16GB LPDDR4X | 512GB SSD | Wi-Fi 6 | Backlit KB | Amazon Alexa | Windows 10 Home with a 3.0.1.1300 network adapter. I've TRIED (almost) EVERYTHING.. obviously not everything or I would've fixed the problem. Just got the laptop barely a week old, and then boom, all of a sudden today my wifi options were completely gone. After just using the laptop like an hour earlier. SO, after tying a few things..like restoring network settings and updating everything -which was already all up to date an way-- eventually i did something that almost worked. It worked enough to get the wifi networks up and showing, but with a new problem -- no sound -- plus i still have the "unable to connect to a network" so even though i see my router name, it only connects but with no internet. So, i tried changing it to the 802.11n and that did nothing. (see above resolution for this). I am not very savy with computers anymore. I need help - real help.. more than a grand i spent on this and now this already.. smh. And look, here's the kicker! I'm actually using the internet on my browser..and not just firefox, i can use it on chrome too- but my adobe cloud says i'm not on the internet and the connection is saying "no internet - secured" --- can someone help? PLEASE

billsey

You have a completely different computer than a Swift 3. Please start your own thread for your question.

Rsampsok

I have an acer swift 3 model N19H4
SF314-57-79ZH
Endless issues where it randomly disconnects from the wifi and will not reconnect then randomly connects again! I’ve tried and done all the fixes suggested here and it still keeps happening I’m about to throw this thing out the window!! I brought it in and they didn’t speak English so we weren’t able to communicate or understand each other!

Athwart

@Rsampsok there is a wide variety of potential fixes but you'll need to narrow it down. I also have the SF314-57 and experienced the same problem for many months. In my case, updating the driver largely (but not completely) fixed the issue.

Firstly, can you advise:
1. Your Wi-Fi adaptor card type & driver version and date? In my case, it is the Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz adaptor and the driver update that initially resolved my problem was version 22.40.0.7 dated 9 Mar 2021. The latest driver package is version 22.150.0 dated 25 Mar 2022.
2. Are you using Windows 10 or 11?

Assuming you have the same adaptor and a fairly recent driver, the issue probably relates to one of the following:
1. The wi-fi settings in Device Manager-Network adapters-[Wi-Fi card name]-Advanced-802.11a/b/g or 802.11n/ac/ax. The wireless mode selected under these 2 sets of properties needs to match the capabilities of your modem. Find the manual for your modem and check what is the highest 802.11 mode it supports. Unless you have a fairly new modem supporting 802.11ax (wi-fi 6), you'll probably need to change the card's wireless mode settings. In my case, I needed to change the 802.11n/ac/ax (5GHz) settings from 802.11ax to 802.11ac (wi-fi 5).

2. If you have a busy wi-fi environment, the disconnects may be a result of the modem changing channels. This should normally happen seamlessly but sometimes not. Find a wi-fi sniffer package such as WiFiInfoView and look at how many other wi-fi devices are on the network and what channels are being used. It may help to change the channel in the modem from [auto] to [fixed] and specify a less busy channel. Channels 1, 6 & 11 are best if there's few using nearby channels.
3. If your modem supports it and you don't need the extra range, changing your connection to the modem from 2.4GHz to 5GHz will probably help. There will be fewer devices using 5GHz and it's faster. If your modem supports both frequencies at the same time, change the wi-fi driver property under Preferred Band from "No Preference" to "Prefer 5GHz band". If your modem supports both frequencies but independently, create a separate logon for the 5GHz band.

billsey

@Athwart has done a good job of covering the bases but one more thing that can cause this type of thing is if one of the antenna cables isn't fully seated to the card...

gelaagca

Hi everyone, I have a Swift 3 SF314-43 and have wifi dropping issue. Just to confirm my router is Huawei EchoLife EG8245H5. I don't have a user manual but I've been trying to check what it supports. It says in one of Huawei's website "By using GPON technology, ultra-broadband access is provided for home users. The EG8245H5 supports the 802.11b/g/n frequency band and ensures an excellent experience with voice, Internet and HD video services." Does this mean I have to change my settings to support the 802.11/b/g/n?

Also to add I have MediaTek WiFi 6 MT7921.

Thank you in advance to whoever will reply.

billsey

@gelaagca in general if the thread is more than a year old or your computer model isn't exactly the same as the one the thread is for, it's much better for you to start a new thread with your issue. In this case the thread is a bit more than a year old and the original poster never told us what computer they had. Please start a new thread (use the Ask a Question button) and include you full model number (SF314-43-xxxx), the issue you are seeing (dropped connections, though it's better if you can pin it down as to when the connections drop) and what you have tried so far. Your SF314-43 supports 802.11ac which is backward compatible with the slower 802.11n that your router uses.

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