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[_Madk]

I'm running Windows 7 on a Dell 14" laptop with built-in WiFi. For the last several months, being idle for some period of time would cause me to lose my internet connection. More recently, that idleness time has gradually decreased from 10-15 minutes to what seems to be a matter of seconds. I direly need a solution and I haven't found anything helpful through Google.

[c--b]

In my personal experience any time related shutdowns are usually heat issues, especially with laptops. Usually it's caused by the heat-sink compound breaking down and conducting heat poorer, the chip in question reaches a preset heat limit at which is shuts down to prevent melting itself. I doubt however that your wifi adapter has a heatsink, though some do get hot enough to warrant one; it still might be a related issue such as something else heating up and causing problems for your wifi chip.

Try taking the back off of your laptop and see if the time increases between disconnects, or put it in a cool place and try it. Other than that laptop drivers are incredibly specific so it's unlikely you'll get much help on google as you probably already figured out.

Edit: Also, check for dust.

[_Madk]

I don't think that heat is the issue; it will do it after being woken from a several hour long sleep mode.

[c--b]

The only other thing I can think of is another common problem that some laptops have, windows has trouble with USB and Expresscard PCIExpress Mini-PCIExpress (Fucking tarded names) slots sometimes when combined with sleep mode. Often manufacturers will simply use internal usb pinouts for wifi cards and stuff. This means your laptop wifi card may basically be a USB compatable card, simply crammed inside.

Maybe try going into power options and turning off the USB power save suspend thingamajig (You'll have to go through a cascade of options, but it's there). That might fix it. And perhaps the differing wifi shutof times you noted were due to your changing power profile habits (Turning on or off USB or Mini-PCIE powersave options depending on what profile you happened to be on)? Worth a try.

Other than that cheap laptops (Like mine and yours) are literally designed to break, I fixed mine however and now it's great.

Seriously though, try both even if you don't think it'll work.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Gain perspective on your issue.

Try connecting to different Wifi networks, and try ethernet.

Are other Wifi-enabled computers disconnecting as well? etc.


Tests like these help you narrow down to the source of your problem. 

[John Sandoval]

Break the problem down into its components. Your computer's wifi turns to shit after a few minutes. There's four potential sources of error: your provider, your connection to your provider, your router, and your computer. You can pretty much ignore the first one, so that leaves you with the last three. Start at the top: plug your computer directly into the source via ethernet cable. If that works, the problem's with either your router or your laptop. Check by either bumming a friends laptop to test the router or going to your local starbucks and using their wifi.

If the problem's with the router, the easiest, most headache-free way of fixing the issue (once you've found it) is checking the warranty. If it's covered, send it back. If not, just buy a new one. They're kind of cheap these days.

If the problem's with your laptop, get a local recommended computer technician to help you out.

If the problem's with your connection to your provider, expect several hours of fruitless calls to technical support.

Now, most of the time, whenever this sort of thing happens dad's clients, the source of the issue generally comes from the source of the wi-fi: the router.

EDIT: dammit, jakman beat me to most of those points; i left the tab open while i went to use the bathroom

[_Madk]

My laptop is the only one having issues with this network and my laptop has never had issues on other networks that I can recall. The typical solution is to put my laptop in and out of sleep mode, but since I restarted it the problem is less severe than it was before. From what Google has lead me to believe, the issue is not infrequent among windows 7 users.

[Nix]

Maybe find some other drivers for the on board wifi?

[Lon]

Perhaps try changing your device settings (under device management) so that your network card is not turned off to save power.

Maybe check security software (firewalls and the like) to see if 'disconnect after some inactivity' is a security feature/setting.

Also check your router's wireless settings.

Perhaps if there is a lot of WiFi activity, especially interacting with your router, then maybe that could cause your loss of connection.