Hi all!

Let me not even mention about my frustration. I have about 25 laptops at work both with Windows 8 (I think its a stupid OS, forgive me, and I regret having it in all 25 laptops) (some with 8.1, some just 8), 64-bit.

I have been connecting these to our Wi-Fi for a long time, some since this January. But I have never connected all 25 to Wi-Fi at the same time. Since this week, I started connecting all 25 to Wi-Fi and this is when the annoyance started:

All these laptops (which have used this Wi-Fi, no change to the Wi-Fi) now says "Can't connect to the network", I'm sure I'm using the correct password/key. This would be from 8am - 3pm. Some laptops will connect, some will not, about 15 will not connect. Sometimes I restart and it connects, but in most cases they will not connect. No specific thing, sometimes connects, sometimes no.

Surprisingly, at about 5pm and so on, all laptops connects to the Wi-Fi. And next morning, they won't connect.

The laptops uses this "Qualcomm Atheros"  Wireless drivers.

What I have been trying:

• Restart computers, in 5%, it will connect
• Disable and Enable the wireless driver/card 20% worked.
• Updated the driver by using "update drivers" in the device manager and also went over to the Qualcomm website and downloaded a recent version, installed it and no big change, the problem is still there.
• Searched Google and this forum, it seems lots of other people have had this problem, many did not get it fix and those who got solutions, their solutions did not solve my issue.

Can someone please help me?

Thanks.

What network infrastructure?  Ie what router/switch are you using?  If you connect 10 computers do they all connect but when you add the other 15 they do not?  We need much more information here

Hi,

I would like to try another router for good measure, for many devices it is not clear that if there is a limit to number of devices which can connect. Some article reported that many routers the Small and Medium model only allows 15 WIFI clients.  It would make more sense that most routers are limited by their hardware, and will experience performance degradation as number of devices increase. Largely depends on the speed of the routers CPU and available RAM, but it also would largely depend on the services running on the router, i.e. NAT enabled, VPN, and access control, wireless open or with password, etc. I think that the amount of traffic that devices make, is also an important factor to the limit. I think that this also might be the reason why manufacturers do not specify number of devices which can connect, because it depends on many factors.

Regards,

D. Wu

Okay, more information:

The device we are using is a TPLINK 3G/4G Wireless Lite N Router, Model No. TL-MR3220.

Yes, We will connect about 6 laptops and 4 smartphones and then connection problem. But sometimes it may work even after all those, but in 90% no success.

Thanks.

Hi,

Thanks for your information, I didnt find any relevant article about this specific router, the only relevant article I found is an article in German IT magazine which reported that in December 2013 that the some routers only allows 15-20 WIFI clients.

http://www.heise.de/ct/hotline/WLAN-Basis-nimmt-nur-15-Nutzer-an-2056906.html

Regards,

D. Wu