Windows 8.1 wifi limited dropping slow frustrating

Anonymous

Hello,

I've seen some older posts on this site and others that reference this problem, but I've seen no solution as of yet. I live in a house with about 5 different OS's from mac to, now, Windows 8.1. I'm from the states, but I've been visiting friends in New Zealand for three months and just upgraded from 8 to 8.1. Upon doing this, my wifi has had intermittent connectivity at best. I've made sure the router/modem had the latest drivers and the settings were right. I've made sure my laptop had the latest drivers, updates, etc. Funny thing: The machines here with Windows Vista, 7, and 8, as well as those with Mac OS and Android, have zero problems connecting to the internet. No dropping, no reloading web pages over and over and over again to finally get them to show up.

I've also tried, with my 8.1 system, using Windows Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. I've temporarily turned off firewalls in both Windows and on the router/modem, with no change in the problem. I've rolled back drivers and still it's like all the laptops with 8.1 on them (three, one bought in the last month) are misfiring on one or more cylinders (yes, I'm aware that computers don't function like cars. It's an analogy).

Sometimes the connection works fine. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it looks like I have full bars, but web pages or downloads simply stall and I have to reload or re-download. When I connect directly to the router/modem via ethernet cable, zero problems. Everything runs like greased lightning, much as the other devices running OS's other than 8.1.

My specifics:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Windows 8.1 Pro

Intel Core i7-3667 U CPU @ 2.00GHz 2.50GHz

4GB RAM (3.82 usable)

64 bit OS X64 based processor

Network Adapter

Intel Centrino Advanced N 6205

Modem/Router

Telecom Technicolor T G589vn V2

Happy to share general security settings, but the settings are exactly the same for the different operating systems across the board.

Help?

Edit: I should also note that, while the internet is sloppy via wifi using your standard browsers going to URL's, the live tiles on the start page, including Windows Store, Facebook, Skype, or any other live app is also not loading properly, not working, or otherwise not running smoothly when connected to wifi. I also play two videogames online: Mechwarrior and Minecraft. I rarely was ever dropped before upgrading to 8.1, now I have issues connecting to them, and once I do connect, I'm constantly getting dropped.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hi Tortugaverde,

The “Limited Connectivity” means that the PC has successfully connected to the router, but the PC wasn't assigned a valid IP address, so you can't actually get to the Internet. It would be great if you can answer these questions to assist you in a better way.

1) Did you install the latest Windows 8.1 compatible Intel Wireless LAN drivers (Version: 16.8.0) on the computer? If yes, was it downloaded from the Lenovo website?

2) Apart from updating to Windows 8.1, did you make any recent changes on the computer prior to this issue?

3) Do you have any third party security program installed on the computer?

Since you do not face any issues with the other Windows Vista, 7, and 8 devices on the same network, this issue seems to be due to the incompatible drivers installed on the computer. Let’s first run the Network and Network Adapter troubleshooter and check if that provides any useful information regarding this issue.

Method 1: Run the Network and Network Adapter Troubleshooters

Step 1: Run the Network Troubleshooter

The Network troubleshooter is an automated tool which can find and automatically fix some common networking problems. Follow these steps and run the troubleshooter.

a) Press “Windows Logo” + “W” keys from the keyboard.

b) Type “Network Troubleshooter” in the search box.

c) Click on “Identify and repair network problems” on the left pane of the window.

d) Click “Next” and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the troubleshooting process.

Please check the troubleshooting report and let’s know the details. You may also try the suggestions given by the troubleshooter and check if that helps. Let’s also run the Network Adapter Troubleshooter and check if that helps.

Step 2: Run the Network Adapter Troubleshooter

The Network Adapter troubleshooter is an automated tool which will check the adapter in the computer for any known issues and provides the details and on how to fix them. Follow these steps and run the troubleshooter.

a) Press “Windows Logo” + “W” keys from the keyboard.

b) Type “Troubleshooting” in the search bar and press “Enter”.

c) In the “Troubleshooting” window, click on “View All” on the left pane.

d) Click on “Network Adapter”.

e) Click on “Advanced” and then click on “Run as Administrator”.

f) Click “Next” and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the troubleshooting process.

Please check the troubleshooting report and let’s know the details. You may also try the suggestions given by the troubleshooter and check if that helps.

If the issue still persists, then I would suggest you to try installing the latest Windows 8.1 compatible Intel Wireless LAN drivers which are released on 26^th^ Jan 2014 from the Lenovo website and check if that resolves the issue.

Method 2: Uninstall and Reinstall the latest Wireless LAN Drivers

Before installing the latest drivers, let’s uninstall the old existing drivers from the computer. Please follow these steps:

Step 1: Uninstall the Device Drivers

a) Press “Windows Logo” + “X” keys on the keyboard.

b) Click on “Device Manager” from that list.

c) Search for the WiFi adapter device from the device list, right click on it and then select “Uninstall”. On the un-installation window, if you have an option: “Delete the driver software for this device” you may select that and then remove the corrupted drivers from the computer.

d) Follow the on-screen instructions to complete it and the restart the computer if prompted.

After the restart, please open the Device Manager again and then click on the “Scan for hardware changes” button. Check if Windows 8.1 detects the WiFi adapter device and installs an appropriate driver automatically. If the issue still persists, then try the next step.

Step 2:Download and Install the latest Intel Wireless LAN Drivers from the Lenovo Website

Please download the latest Windows 8.1 compatible Intel Wireless LAN Drivers from this link:

Intel Wireless LAN (11abgn, 11bgn, 11ac) for Windows 8.1 (64-bit), 8 (64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) - ThinkPad

For more information and suggestions regarding the Network and Network Adapter issues, you may also refer to these articles:

Wired and wireless network problems

Why can't I connect to a network?

How do I fix network adapter problems?

Please get back to us with the results. If the issue still persists, we’ll be glad to assist you further.

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44 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-07-13T23:05:13+00:00

Are you happy with .8 Kbps? If not you should use the new created membership to this free forum and find out what is causing you to have a download speed that is 70 times slower then dialup modems from 1980.

You can easily ask a question using the participate link on top and you should have a reply to how to identify the issue and what steps you should take to fix it.

Blaming it on Windows 8.1 is useless. If you were to look at it objectively. If Windows 8.1 had a bug that caused the network speeds to go back 65 years I would guess that you would see headline news in just about every news media outlet and Microsoft's stock price would gravitate toward the $10 range given that Windows 8.1 has been out for a while.

23.5% of all computer users have windows 8 and 90% or more of those use 8.1. Last I checked there were 1.3 billion active computers and that was about 7 years ago. You would have a minimum of ~20 million users that had internet so slow they couldn't get on to Facebook and it would take them about 3 seconds to download a single twitter message . I would have to assume that if there really was a bug that was part of the Windows 8.1 OS you wouldn't stop hearing about it.

On top of that, many of the servers that run the web sites such as this one use the newer version of Windows server and they would also suffer from the same network related issue. That would cause a single server to only be able to feed a single user and that connection would be slow. However, in contrast, a single server can contain many sites. It isn't uncommon for on server to have 500 active sites that have 1,000s of users downloading content all day every day. Since the internet hasn't stopped working this week I doubt the issue is actually windows 8.1 and more likely a third party issue like you upgraded the OS but the anti-virus software didn't get updated.

You could open a command prompt for each ping and ping your routers gateway, a DNS server, a web site such as bing.com or google.com, and the same web sites ip address such as bing.com which is 204.79.197.200

You would use the -t flag to let you see where spikes are. Here are the commands

ipconfig press enter and note the default gateway. Then run each ping in a new window at the same time and let them run to see if there are any unusual spikes. This assumes your router's IP is 192.168.1.1

ping 192.168.1.1 -t

ping 204.79.197.200 -t

ping bing.com -t

ping 8.8.8.8 -t

If the default gateway is above a few ms the issue is between your computer and the router. If the others are the only one high the issue is your ISP. You should also do this with the ipv6 since there could be an issue with how your isp handles ipv6.

If everything works the issue is firewall or anti-malware software. They could have caused your system to cache bad settings which can be cleared using an elevated command prompt by running:

netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt

and

ipconfig /flushdns
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Anonymous

2015-07-13T17:43:57+00:00

I have 3 laptops in my house, 1 with windows 7 ultimate and 2 with windows 8.1, after upgrade windows 8 to 8.1 the wifi 15 Mbs dowload on windows 8.1 just fell to 0.8 Kbs, all drivers are up to date, the funny thing is that with the windows 8 both laptops dont have any problem, and on windows 7 i still have 15Mbs download. It's a problem of windows 8.1, there's no point saying otherwise, so try to find the problem because there are millions of users with the same problem,
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Anonymous

2015-04-08T07:40:14+00:00

Good to hear. Just out of curiosity can you get the ipconfig data so I can see what windows is reading from the wireless adapter. In case I run in to someone with a similar issue I would like to see. Limited just means that there is a limited connection to the network. It could be a network adapter is limited but you are connecting to the internet using a different one.

If you don't mind, it won't change anything it just reads.

Windows key + x > command prompt > type and press enter after ipconfig /all> right click the command prompt > select all > press enter to copy > paste it here.
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Anonymous

2015-04-08T05:30:44+00:00

Ok I have sorted the problem out now!!

None of the above worked, and I have to agree you DanzIZme, the Dongle was not compatible with Windows 8.1 , that's why it was dropping me all the time.

Solved the problem by getting the latest Wifi Router and Network adapter which are Win 8.1 compatible, loaded it all on and running like a dream, no more dropping!!

It says Limited but who cares it is working :-)
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