Failing Wifi Adapter

[Laquer Head]

I have a Gigabyte PCI wifi adapter in the backup rig and last few weeks its been losing the wifi, like it actually disconnects and disables itself.

I either need to reboot or manually enable it in network settings.

In almost all these incidents the computer then freezes, often after a few minutes, sometimes immediately...

Twice it didn't freeze, but I lost wifi, and tried to reboot and the computer either didn't respond or attempted a reboot, only to sit in an endless loop on shutting down screen.

My question, can a faulty or slowly dying wifi adapter cause the additional freezing and odd behavior?

 

[Darren]

Try in a different machine?

 

[Laquer Head]

Try in a different machine?

I have indeed had this adapter in a different machine, and while it worked - it was slow and poor range due to location of the machine. No freezing ever before, and the adpater has been fine in the backup rig for a good many months..only recently has it been disabling itself

 

[Intel_man]

it was slow and poor range due to location of the machine

Does it crash on your other computer though?

Or better yet, try putting in a different wireless adapter to your backup PC and see how that reacts.

 

[johnb35]

Is it an older model? Would bet the card is overheating and doing this.

 

[Laquer Head]

Is it an older model? Would bet the card is overheating and doing this.

Not that old, but it was like $20

 

[mistersprinkles]

Not sure this will help but I had a demonic motherboard in the form of an ASRock Am1b-ITX in my mom's bedroom computer. It gave me all sorts of ridiculous problems, including the one you are describing. When I changed to a different board the problem (and about a dozen other problems) went away.

Not saying this is your issue but for trouble shooting you really need to try this card in another machine for a couple of weeks to see if this keeps happening. I would also suggest you update your motherboard's BIOS and update to the latest drivers for the wireless adapter though neither of these is likely to improve the situation. They are, I would say, necessary troubleshooting steps though.