In reply to a post by DFScale:

I would think that the first thing to try is to turn off the wireless on the router and see whether the laptop in question can connect to the internet and the router config page via the access point. That way, you make the question of whether the laptop can connect to the access point in the first place quite naked.

also very much worth doing .

In reply to a post by pyarwood:

why would updated drivers allow it to see a radio that it currently cannot see,

because WiFi is a complex set of protocols.

Updating driver for the wNIC, and updating fimware for the AP device (router integrated, or standalone) has worked for me countless times. Originally back in the b/g days when Draytek were not doing WiFi standards testing (for price).

The other thing to check is if the AP is set for WPA2 & WPA3 mode, many older (even some WiFi 4) wNICs have choked on the WPA3 frames and refused to connect even to the WPA2 mode.

In reply to a post by Taras:

its happened a few times with intel ..... for instance.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35199440

That sort of thing is why "linux at home" is not getting traction against Chromebooks or Android.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

A home router contains both a router and an access point. If you disable its layer 3 features (in particular the DHCP server) and then plug into the LAN side, they you're just using the access point.

Some more helpful boxes have options in the GUI to choose if you want AP mode.

Channels *could* be the issue: if the regulatory domain is set wrongly on either the laptop or the AP, then the AP might be on a channel that the laptop won't use. Encryption is another possibility - e.g. if the AP is set to permit WPA3 only, but the laptop only does WPA2 (or vice versa). However in my experience it's rare for devices to be set in a non-backwards-compatible mode.

I've seen quite a few late Intel N/3 and early AC/4 adaptors refuse to work. Replaced one with a broadcom adaptor and solved the problem.

Note that roaming between APs is the responsibility of the client, and some clients *do* stick to a weak signal even when a stronger one is available. If you turn wifi off and on on the laptop, does it still choose the weak AP?

Roaming has always been hit and miss; mesh exists for a reason.

Ideally what you want to do is to do a scan on the laptop, to list the nearby APs which it can see - individual APs with their MAC addresses (BSSID), not just the network names (ESSID). For a Windows laptop, I don't know how to do that. For a Mac you used to be able to run "airport -s" but it's been removed from recent versions of macOS.

Maybe try NirSoft's tool:
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wifi_information_view....

I'm never sure what info to put in the posts, so thanks Pheasant for the prompts.

The AP's a TP-Link router (E220-g2u), connected via ethernet to my main router (Vodafone PowerHub) and set up in AP mode. I've given them both the same SSID.

The laptop's an inherited Asus Vivobook X415FAC, It's not badly-specced, will be many years old, but it's probably of similar age to my main laptop, which connects to the AP happily

The Asus can see the AP - if I put them right next to each other, it connects **, but move it to where I need it, and it seems to want to connect to the main router which is 20m away, through external walls (the AP is 6m away).

Thanks for your help!


**according to the router’s web GUIs

Edited by Robroadband (Sun 27-Apr-25 13:28:03)

Hi jchamier

The wireless card in the Asus is a Realtek 8821CE 802.11ac.

One thing I have noticed, after doing some Googling, is that a possibly helpful setting "Roamng aggressiveness" isn't available in the card's properties, so I wonder whether it's an older card. As far as I can see it's got the latest driver insofar as Windows tells me that, and the driver begins "2024".

Thanks jchamier (and everyone else). I need to do some experimenting then, and will come straight back once done.

Really appreciate the input everyone

go into device manager and check if the driver version is lower than 2023.56.0502.2017 date: 2018/08/22

if so
https://www.realtek.com/Download/List?cate_id=669&me...

Also try setting a guest ssid and set it to 2.4ghz first and see if it will connect to it

two options -
replace the wifi card
or get a usb wifi dongle.

Nirsoft

I've tried to insert a screenshot I've taken but nada.

WifiInfoView shows both main router and AP; when I take the Asus to where it should sit, it stays connected to the main router whose signal strentgh now shows "10", the AP being "100" on both 2.4 & 5Ghz bands.

I'll try posts in turn, so hold hard if you think I'm ignoring you(!)