Wi-Fi disconnects every few minutes and reconnects

It drops when idle or on battery. Try this first — it costs a few minutes of battery life and fixes most of these.

1. Find the adapter and turn off the device's own power saving.

   PowerShellCopy

   Get-NetAdapter -Physical | Where-Object MediaType -eq 'Native 802.11' | Format-Table Name,InterfaceDescription

2. Disable the allow-to-turn-off setting.

   PowerShellCopy

   $a = Get-NetAdapter -Name 'Wi-Fi'Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName MSPower_DeviceEnable | Where-Object InstanceName -like "*$($a.PnPDeviceID.Replace('\','\\'))*"

   The device manager checkbox and this WMI property are the same setting. Reading it here tells you whether the checkbox was ever actually applied — Group Policy and driver updates both reset it.

3. Simplest reliable route: open Device Manager, the adapter's Properties, Power Management tab, and clear "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

   Command PromptCopy

   devmgmt.msc

4. Then stop the power plan doing the same thing at a higher level.

   Command PromptCopy

   powercfg /setacvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 0powercfg /setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 0powercfg /setactive SCHEME_CURRENT

   That GUID pair is Wireless Adapter Settings → Power Saving Mode. Zero is maximum performance, on mains and on battery.

Get-WinEvent -LogName 'Microsoft-Windows-WLAN-AutoConfig/Operational' -MaxEvents 40 | Where-Object Id -in 8003,8002,11004 | Format-Table TimeCreated,Id,Message -Wrap

It drops when moving between access points, or at a desk that sits between two of them.

1. See which access point it is actually on, and how strong the signal is.

   Command PromptCopy

   netsh wlan show interfaces

2. In Device Manager → adapter → Advanced, set "Roaming Aggressiveness" (Intel) or "Roaming Sensitivity" to Medium-Low, and "Preferred Band" to 5GHz where the coverage supports it.

   A high roaming value makes the adapter jump to a marginally better access point mid-transfer, which drops every session it was holding. Most of these faults are a laptop bouncing between two APs it can see equally well.

3. List the stored profiles and remove any duplicate for the same SSID.

   Command PromptCopy

   netsh wlan show profilesnetsh wlan delete profile name="OldSSID"

4. If two access points broadcast the same SSID on 2.4GHz with overlapping channels, fix the channel plan on the access points — channels 1, 6 and 11 only.

The pattern is not obvious. Do this before changing anything — it usually names the reason for each disconnect.

1. Generate the report. It covers the last three days.

   Command PromptCopy

   netsh wlan show wlanreport

2. Open C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WlanReport\wlan-report-latest.html and read the disconnect reasons on the timeline chart.

3. "Disconnect reason: 802.11 association failed" points at the access point; "the network adapter was reset" points at the driver; "user initiated" points at power management.

4. Update the wireless driver from the laptop manufacturer's site rather than Windows Update, which frequently carries an older build for wireless chipsets.