Wifi glitch with a malfunctioning desktop

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senan79

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  • #1
    I have a prebuilt desktop under warranty. I didn't boot and I called the manufacturer. After multiple visits by different technicians, the CPU, motherboard and the PSU were replaced. Then they had to replace the GPU. It is still not working. Now they are trying to figure out what to do. The last technician removed the RTX 3060 and the system is running using the IGP on Ryzen 5600G.

    However the in-built wifi is not connecting to the router. It shows that access point with low signal strength and when I try to connect is fails. It tries on the 5GHz then 2.4GHz and then gives up. It was working previously. Somewhere between replacing all the parts a technician messed up. The last technician had basically taken the entire PC apart before putting it back together. I have already told the manufacturer about it. It is the manufacturer's headache now. I am sure that they will fix it.

    While it is trying to connect, it seems to interfere all wifi connections. Netflix and Amazon Prime on the smart tv, youtube on phones, steam updates on the pc etc. If I add a usb wifi dongle and go online, the speeds are far slower than what it can go. The usb wifi connection also seems to be affected.

    All of them start working well once the PC is shutdown. What can be the reason for the interference?
     
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    senan79

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  • #4
    The machine has an internal wifi card with no external antennae. It has 1 more year of warranty. I am not touching anything inside until the year is over.

    I think the model is not in production anymore. The service is provided by a contracting company. They check my machine, talk with the manufacturer for parts, get them and then replace them at my home.
     
    steelghost

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  • #5
    senan79 said:
    The machine has an internal wifi card with no external antennae.
    Click to expand...
    By "card", I assume you mean a PCIe card? If so, can you post a picture of the back of the machine so we can see the connectors or whatever on it.

    There needs to be something to transmit and receive the signal, outside of the metal box of your PC case. If an RF system is missing the antennae it was designed to have, weird effects can and do result.
     
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    whoisit

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  • #8
    From the diagram, it looks like it might have a panel style WiFi antenna (Item 6 on the diagram).

    Internally, I assume there are laptop style leads that connect to the wireless card. Might be worth opening the case to make sure they are secure. They can be fiddly, and seem secure only to pop off later.

    Other thing might be to uninstall and reinstall drivers, if you have way to get them on a usb drive.
     
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    senan79

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  • #9
    Externally looks fine.
    IMG_6673_small.jpg




    Reinstalled drivers. No improvement.
     
    Paladin

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  • #11
    That looks like a Dell, maybe an Optiplex 3000 model. As far as I have seen their internal wifi cards have a cable or pair of cables that run to the back of the case for external antenna connections. That chassis does not have the connectors. That is how it works on the 5000 or 7000 series, maybe the 3000 doesn't have them but if you get a picture inside, we can see if it is supposed to have external antenna connections or not. It might have wires going to some kind of mini antenna under that black plastic cover.

    In any case, since it is under warranty, just have them replace the whole thing. If you push them hard enough they will do it rather than continuing to pay someone to come out over and over doing piece by piece. They should easily be able to simply bring a new (refurb) machine, put your hard drive into it, and be done. 5 minute job.
     
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    senan79

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  • #12
    One of the previous technicians came today. It was as expected, a disconnected cable. One of the two fine cables connecting to the internal wifi card was slightly damaged and the technician did not connect it due to that. He also failed to inform me about it.

    Now the system is completely packed by the technician to send to the manufacturer. Had to format the SSD after getting data off it.

    Don't know if I will get a rebate or an equivalent system. Systems with 12GB Nvidia cards currently are double the price of what I paid. Also the entire thing took 40 days from the start. My father is wondering how they will deal in case of a system bought by a business.
     
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  • #13
    You can get a used 12GB 3060 for a decent price so there is almost certainly refurbished stock. Basically they take machines that are lemons like yours back and send them to a fulfillment center where they are disassembled, tested for good parts and then the good parts are put back together into replacement systems or spare stock for warranty replacements. If they are out of similar parts, they might upgrade you a slight bit but not much. If anything, you might get an equivalent card of different brand or something. I would not worry about it too much.

    Issues like yours are why I prefer to build my own machine when it is for gaming and personal use. For my work machines I will use a Dell Optiplex or whatever they call the new one (desktop pro plus or something). They are highly reliable, simple and have oodles of replacement parts even if they are not always easy to upgrade in some ways. For home or personal machines, I will carefully build my own with parts I can simply return or replace as needed if something goes wrong. No need to go through extended back and forth with customer support in most cases.
     
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    senan79

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  • #14
    The whole thing is complete now.

    Lenovo refunded me the full purchase price of the machine after I shipped the system to them. It took a month for the money to come to my bank account but it did arrive, I am not sure how it makes sense for them economically.

    I am not too mad since I have another gaming desktop and a mac mini. But I have no other machine with NVIDIA card for ML/AI. Stable Diffusion and LLMs do work with my RX6600 but it is not as effortless as with RTX 3060.

    Now I have to seriously think about replacing that RX6600 with something beefier. But the cheapest proper upgrade will be RX 9060XT 16GB, but it is almost twice as expensive as the RX6600. RTX 5060Ti 16GB is 2.5 times expensive as a RX6600 and higher cards are only theoretically possible if I spend all the refund money + some additional amount on the GPU. I would also need new power supply for the higher cards.:mad:
     
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    senan79

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  • #17
    Not looking for old cards. Also no 8GB cards for AI/ML.

    So 12 or 16GB cards - Intel is not available, AMD has 6700XT, 7700XT and 9060xt 16GB, NVIDIA has 3060, 4060ti and 5060ti 16GB.

    A 3060 is just slightly faster then 6600 but it used up 180W+ when compared to the 100W limit for my 6600. Both 9060 XT 16GB and 5060Ti 16GB are the latest gen and provide more performance for the power they use up.
     
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