Whack Ass WiFi Issue

November 25, 2017

Computer/ Tech Related

Comments Off on Whack Ass WiFi Issue


Someone send me a Broadcomm engineer, electrical engineer and a physicist! I have a whack technical issue on my work laptop that makes less than zero sense to me.

So I’m on FiOS and have symmetrical 75/75MBPS service… And I notice that pages are loading slow. So I do a speed test and I’m getting 1MBPS down and 10MBPS up… Odd… Here’s a bullet list of things I did to troubleshoot (using bullets to get to the point so you’re not reading a giant block of text):

  • Checked other devices on the network and they were all fine; getting full speed
  • Rebooted the laptop [didn’t work]
  • Reinstalled the wireless drivers [didn’t work]
  • Rebooted the router/access point for shits and giggles [didn’t work]
  • Unplugged my laptop AC adapter [WORKED] (wtf?)

So… the AC adapter is causing some kind of interference. What the hell could this be? Is it a problem with the adapter brick causing interference? Or is it a hardware issue with my radio in the laptop?

  • I tested this on another laptop on and off AC power, and that was fine, so it’s not any kind of electrical problem

Here’s where it gets really whack though:

It only happens on the 5ghz band; not the 2.4… So to further test this out, I also reproduced this off my FiOS network with my LTE hotspot…

  • Laptop on battery; using 2.4 ghz band on my LTE hotspot [works fine]
  • Laptop on AC power; using 2.4 ghz band on my LTE hotspot [works fine]
  • Laptop on AC power; using 2.4 ghz band on my LTE hotspot with the hotspot plugged in to a wall outlet[works fine]
  • Laptop on battery; using 5 ghz band on my LTE hotspot [works fine]
  • Laptop on AC power; using 5 ghz band on my LTE hotspot [works fine]
  • Laptop on AC power; using 5 ghz band on my LTE hotspot with the hotspot plugged in to a wall outlet[SLOW]

Also repeated the tests above on FiOS home Wifi and got the same results. WUT in the actual fuck is going on here?

I don’t have enough info to narrow it down between the AC adapter (need to get a new one from work) or if it’s just a faulty broadcomm chip where the shielding is all jacked up and getting interference. Who knows.

Yo IT people – gimme a new laptop kthxbai. Ain’t got no time for this shit