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Hello there,

I’m running 64-bit Windows 10 Home on a Dell Inspiron 5520. My network adapter is an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230, stock on the model. Although the computer came with Windows 7, I don’t think this issue is attached to the upgrade as I’ve been running 10 for about half a year. 7 is still on the machine, and have not yet tried rebooting on the old operating system.

Within the past week or so, I’ve had real trouble getting on and staying on Wi-Fi. Currently I am at school, where I try to stay on my ethernet cable as often as possible, but every time I unplug when I need to head to class or want to do homework somewhere else than at my desk, my Wi-Fi will not immediately activate. It acts as if the hardware is shut off.

I didn’t do that…

So, I right-click to activate the automatic troubleshooter. Hooray, it activates the Wi-Fi card! But it says I have another problem: “A network cable is not properly plugged in or may be broke.” Eh, whatever, I disconnected from the ethernet, so maybe it’s just confused for a second.

Yet, the Wi-Fi takes much longer than it should to connect to the same network I’ve connected to for over three years now. Once it finally gets it, the Internet moves pretty slow, and randomly likes to decide to disconnect to the point where I have to tell it which network to try to connect to. It’s done it twice while I’ve been typing this post.

I’d like to think this network cable issue is something internal since none of my classmates are experiencing a similar issue, but have no idea and, while I’m usually semi-confident in my computer troubleshooting, am not really excited about taking apart the device that is bearing a huge project for my degree. I’m also confused, as others that have posted that error messaging have talked about fixes that I’m not seeing as options (their issues have ended up being in regards to a router or modem, something I definitely don’t have access to).

Thanks so much for your help! It is much appreciated!