Odd Computer Question

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
Post Reply
User avatar
Heinrad
Posts: 6281
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2001 5:00 am
Location: Riskin' it all on my Russian Roulette!

Odd Computer Question

Post by Heinrad »

Okay, I'm hoping somebody out there has an idea about this, because I've never run into anything like it before.

When I got into work yesterday morning, I did the usual thing: Woke the computer up, fired up web browser, email, and accounts software, and then did the other thing I do every morning. I turned on the mobile hotspot on the computer.

And suddenly, BLIP!, email stopped working, internet stopped working, and the accounts software disconnected itself and shut down. The hotspot was working fine, though.

The only difference between yesterday and the day before was that I got a Windows Update in the night. And after many, many hours of trying to figure out what was going on(and discovering that there haven't been a lot of issues with a just updated Windows 11), I finally realized what was going on. It was the mobile hotspot. If I turn it on, the computer itself can't go online for some reason. The closest thing I could find to any kind of information was if your computer would disconnect/couldn't connect to the hotspot.

I did try to get the computer, which has WiFi built in, to try to connect to the hotspot, but it wouldn't recognize it.

Everything I found, which didn't actually fit the problem, suggested uninstalling the drivers in question and reinstalling them, and letting them patch from Windows update. However, if it's Windows update that caused the problem, it seems like a bad idea.

Short of getting just a straight WiFi router(which we're thinking of), does anybody have any ideas? Or run into this situation themselves?
User avatar
Denyer
Posts: 33033
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2000 4:00 am
Location: Perfidious Albion
Contact:

Re: Odd Computer Question

Post by Denyer »

I'm assuming a cabled connection and built-in wi-fi hardware.

My deductive process would go, not necessarily in order:
1. Try any USB wi-fi adapters that are lying around.
2. Get a router.
3. Boot from an Ubuntu (or derivative) live image and see whether creating a hotspot works there. Stick the accounting software in a VM and ditch Windows.
4. Go somewhere far enough away it's reasonable to scream into the void about troubleshooting network and/or driver problems.
5. ???
6. Profit.
User avatar
Heinrad
Posts: 6281
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2001 5:00 am
Location: Riskin' it all on my Russian Roulette!

Re: Odd Computer Question

Post by Heinrad »

2 and 4 seem to be the best options. Although there's also 7.

7. Go build a small altar to the computer gods, find a small, fur-bearing animal, and sacrifice it to their bloodthirsty wonts and hope they listen.

Nobody actually lets me ever do #7, though......
User avatar
Heinrad
Posts: 6281
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2001 5:00 am
Location: Riskin' it all on my Russian Roulette!

Re: Odd Computer Question

Post by Heinrad »

Well, after Dell got my hopes up with driver updates only to dash them, I tried looking on line again to see if anybody was having this problem. And lo and behold, I found an article that said a lot of people were having this problem, and Microsoft is working on a fix. In the short term, the recommendation was to uninstall the update.

And everything seems to be working again. So far.

Now I need to find a small, fur bearing animal to sacrifice to the computer gods in thanks. I think I saw a squirrel out the window....
Post Reply