How not to lose Wifi after waking up from standby or sleep mode?

Question

After 30 minutes my Windows 7 PC goes to Standby. Problem is, when I get it back to normal, Wi-Fi is disconnected. And it doesn't just reconnect and come back in 10 seconds. For example, when I start it up, I have to click on the Wi-Fi symbol, select the Wi-Fi and connect to it. This takes much longer and made me think about disabling standby altogether - not the best solution.

Some information:

• The PC is a standard desktop machine, no laptop.
• There is no additional power management software installed.
• The Wireless Network Adapter (Atheros AR5005G) is set to not being able to be deactivated to save energy in Device Manager.
• The Wireless Network Adapter uses no special software from Atheros, only the driver that was installed by Windows itself
• Control panel > Power options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings > Wireless adapter settings > Power saving mode = Maximum Performance

Any idea what could cause this behaviour? How can I stop it from losing Wi-Fi or reconnect normally?

Solution 1

I cannot believe this, but after months of trying to fix this, it turns out that, for me, checking ON (enabled) the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” worked.

Got this idea from Intel’s My WiFi Technology stops working after resuming from sleep or hibernate in Windows 7. My guess is that the driver expects to turn the network card back on after sleep or on a cold boot, and because the option is turned off, it toggles the "switch" from being already on to off. Maybe?

Anyway it works for me now, perfectly.

Solution 2

Apparently, disabling a Windows power saving option causes a family of Intel drivers to malfunction. I was able to solve this issue on two Intel network card-equipped Lenovo ThinkPads. So if your computer also relies on an Intel WiFi network card, I'd suggest you :

1. Go to the Windows Control Panel
2. Click on System
3. Select the Device Manager
4. Right-click on your Intel wireless device and choose Properties
5. In the tab Power Management, enable the option Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power.

This solved my problem. As I am not using an English version of Windows, let me know if you can't find those menus.

Solution 3

For me on an HP EliteBook Folio 9480m (Windows 7 x64 SP1 with an Intel Wifi chip), the solution was to switch "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" OFF, and then back ON. Unbelievable!

Solution 4

After much aggravation, and trying all the power management options, I discovered that windows was using more than one utility to manage the wireless adapter. After exiting the trendnet utility and disabling it from starting up in the system configuration utility, I restarted the computer to find the problem solved.

The clue that led me to this was having more than one wireless icon in the system tray. The one in green happened to be trendnet.

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Comments

[Admin]

Sounds like your power mangement software is turning the device off.

[Admin]

There is no power management software installed (that I know of. Couldn't find any looking through Programs). This is a desktop PC, so also no special BIOS stuff going on, I think.

[Admin]

Clarify your question with that informat. Windows comes with power management tools so I would double check device properties. Update your question with all information learned by doing this.

[Admin]

Any way to export this configuration stuff in a sane way? Additionally I'm on German Win7, the translation of the normal options are horrible so I'm having problems connecting the English names to the German ones... (e.g. "Deaktivieren" = "Standby" sometimes)

[Admin]

Export what configuration? This a new problem or a problem that has always existed?

[Admin]

All the settings of the power profile in the power options of windows. I thought you were referring to this to be added to the question. Right? The problem is not new, but I ignored it until now. Don't really know when it started or if it was always there.

[Admin]

I suggested you just confirm what the device does when the computer goes to sleep which can be found on the properties of the device itself in Device Manager. I suggested you clarify your computer isn't a laptop in the question itself.

[Admin]

Did you install software supplied by Atheros or are you allowing Windows to manage your wireless connection?

[Admin]

No special software from Atheros, only drivers that were automatically installed by Windows itself.

[Admin]

Could you run eventvwr.exe to see if you have errors during the time of waking from sleep? If so, which errors.

[Admin]

No errors, but a warning: "TIMEOUT<svchost.exe> C:\Windows\System32\netprofm.dll". Could this be related?

[Admin]

Also check Control panel>Power options>Change plan settings>Change advanced power settings>Wireless adaptor settings>Power saving mode. This is a different setting than in Device Manager

[Admin]

That's set to "Maximum Performance". Seems to be the most reasonable setting. And I'll try disabling Avira AntiVir, but I can't image that this is the culprit.

[Paul]

Seems completely backwards, but worked for me too.

[Piotr Falkowski]

Actually turning it 'off' worked for me on windows 10 Samsung laptop, but +1 anyway.

[Pockets]

Lenovo Thinkpad T540p user running Win7 x64 here - had a problem very similar to the one described in this answer. I ended up delving into Power Options (advanced settings) and setting the "Wireless Network Card" (or whatever it was called) to maximum performance on both battery & plugged in (and, like many others in this thread, re-enabled the "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" checkbox that you get to via Device Manager > Network Cards > yadda-yadda-yadda).

[Brian Rothstein]

This worked for me as well! My Intel Wireless card started disconnecting and failing to reconnect after sleep. One of the first things I tried was to uncheck the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option. This didn't work. So the next thing I did was update the driver. This also didn't work. But the combination of updating the driver and enabling the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option seems to have fixed it for me!

[saber tabatabaee yazdi]

Wifi network disappears after sleep mode Actually turning it 'off' worked for me on windows 8.1 Lenovo laptop, but +1 anyway. My WiFi Technology stops working after resuming from sleep or hibernate in Windows. hide wireless network suddenly after sleep or hibernate

[smcs]

+1 for the step by step guide, worked for me in Windows 10. Thank you, this behaviour was a major PITA

[smcs]

I was wrong, it only worked once. Sigh

[nomen]

This was good advice. "Allow ... to save power" was already on for me, so other people's advice didn't apply and I was going to move on until I read this answer. Similar model, running Windows 10.

[Ed Staub]

Thanks! and sigh... this worked for me 8 years later, Windows 10, with a 2020 computer and Intel Wifi 6 AX200.

[Daniel]

haha! latest windows 10 on an asus laptop with a realtek wlan/bt-combo. aaaand it works. weired but true....