This post was originally about trouble I had at a coffee shop trying to connect my laptop to their Wi-Fi network. That was an ordeal, and a puzzle I attempted to solve, but in the bigger picture it turns out that the laptop is on its final breath.
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\nThe problem I had was trying to connect with the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi. Windows 10 just won’t do it. Turns out, the password had changed, so it was a simple solution to forget the old network and then re-connect and specify the new password. Here’s how that works in Windows 10:<\/p>\n
That solved the connection issue, but the Internet remained sluggish. Or, upon reflection, it was my laptop that crept along at a snail’s pace. Programs would seize. The mouse pointer would lock for several seconds. Nothing worked. So I finished my tea and left the shop.<\/p>\n
When I returned home, I hooked up the laptop to download some updates, but it wouldn’t connect to my office Wi-Fi. In fact, it started seizing again, which raised my eyebrows.<\/p>\n
Checking the Device Manager, I noticed a USB controller not working. That gizmo has nothing to do with the networking hardware, but it might cause the sluggishness. So I restarted the laptop in safe mode.<\/p>\n
No dice. The system failed to restart in safe mode. Instead, it popped up in whatever-normal mode is. This time the Device Manager showed multiple failed hardware gizmos, including the network adapter.<\/p>\n
Minus Internet access, it’s impossible to fix some problems. For example, you can’t update a driver or even run some Windows troubleshooters. The laptop is under warranty (for two more months), but I can’t access the support information because it too requires an Internet connection.<\/p>\n
I’ll continue to futz with the laptop to try and diagnose what’s wrong. My guess is hardware failure, which happens more rapidly with laptops than with desktop PCs. The portability and heat issues add up quickly for a laptop. And that’s one reason why I strongly recommend in Laptops For Dummies<\/em> that you obtain a 3-year warranty on the device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Wambooli flag flutters at half staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-7819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-laptop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7825,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions\/7825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}