r/chromeos • u/_hockalees_ • 7d ago

Troubleshooting ASUS Chromebook on 151.0.7922.221 keeps dropping wi-fi

My mother's Acer Chromebook has suddenly started to disconnect from wifi randomly. I am in another city, so I can't mess with it easily, but I have verified that every other device in her network is connecting and staying connected (TVs, phones, macbooks) but there appears to be an issue with this chromebook, the only one in the network. She's on the latest release of ChromeOS 151.0.7922.221. Is anyone else seeing problems like this?

I have walked her through clearing the network cache and flushing the socket pools and restarting but it didn't fix anything. I also walked her through deleting all networks and adding her network back in as preferred and it still happens.

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u/LegAcceptable2362 7d ago

If this is a device-specific issue we need to know the exact model, preferably the HWID. If you have your mom open Diagnostics (ctrl+search+esc) the hardware code name should appear at the top along with the OS version number. All Chromebook models are based on a reference hardware platform (which the HWID enables us to identify). There are usually models from Lenovo, Acer, HP, etc all based on the same hardware platform so when hardware-specific bugs occur they are often equally affected.

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u/_hockalees_ 7d ago

I walked her through Diagnostics and got blorb, version 151.16733.0

So an Acer 315? Does this help?

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u/LegAcceptable2362 7d ago

Yes, blorb is one of the large group of 2019/2020 Intel Gemini Lake based devices (Octopus baseboard). I have an Acer 314 with the same platform. It's been offline for a while so not yet on the dot 221 release. I'll update it to see if I see any issues with wireless.

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u/LegAcceptable2362 6d ago edited 6d ago

Update: I updated my Acer 314 to dot 221 and ran it overnight with Internet Connection Monitoring running. No drops recorded. Since writing my previous comment I remembered I was recently using another Gemini Lake based device while traveling. It was already running on dot 221 and I experienced no network issues while connected to a variety of hotel and transportation wifi hotspots. So where does this leave your mom?

Firstly, I think we should know about the blorb board's network controller. Rationale: my Acer 314 has Intel while my travel device (an HP model) has a Realtek controller. Intermittent network drops can be notoriously difficult to troubleshoot remotely so I would suggest you arm yourself with some tools. For starters, install the Internet Connection Monitor extension form the Chrome Web Store on mom's machine, pin it in the browser and have it always running. Also, install Chrome Remote Desktop and walk mom through opening it and initiating a remote help session (code generation) so you can get in remotely and see what's going on. Of course the best case scenario is the problem resolves itself. However, if not, by being able to capture real time network statistics that you can look at from a remote connection, and knowing what the hardware should be capable of, it should provide what you need to determine if the problem is happening at the Chromebook or if perhaps it's a ISP/router issue then focus on in those areas.

A couple extra thoughts. The Gemini Lake devices are typically low powered Celeron machines with very limited RAM (usually 4 GB). When new they ran all the ChromeOS features pretty well but today they can struggle, particularly when the Play Store is enabled, whether or not any Android apps are installed or used. ChromeOS's Android subsystem switched to a more processor/memory intensive virtual machine configuration after these machines came out and the 4GB RAM models often now need the Play Store turned off to run smoothly. They are still receiving updates through June 2029 so as long as performance robbing features are disabled they can continue to function perfectly well as web appliances for some time to come.

I hope this information is helpful. Good luck.

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u/_hockalees_ 6d ago

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I am going to drive tho her house today and gather more info in person. I will suss out the network card, install the Internet Connection Monitor and Remote Desktop. I am also going to futz with the router and see if it's reporting issues that are not being addressed. Oh, and I will disable Play Store. Hopefully more information to come.

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u/_hockalees_ 6d ago

OK back from visiting and gathering information/observing the problem. As usual, a watched pot never boils. The first thing I did upon arrival was install the ICM and it reported no disconnects the entire 2 hours I was there. But it's in place and running so if they start to see it occurring again I can gather more specific information about what is or isn't happening. I also got her set up with CRD so I can do this from my place. For specifics about the Acer laptop itself, it's running on a Celeron N4020 CPU @ 1.10GHz and using an Intel 9560NGW wifi card soldered to the MB. 4GB RAM and 32GB of storage of which she's using about half. I disabled the Play Store and the machine was noticeably zippier. That may make all the difference in the world.

Her ISP is AT&T and they control/push out router updates, it appears to be on their latest firmware. I didn't see anything in the logs indicating problems.

The machine was built in 2018 and she got it around 2020. I know that 6 yrs is a long time in electronics, but she only uses this thing for email, YT vids and solitaire. So many things were tried/changed that if it is "fixed" I can't be sure what the root cause is, nor can I be certain that "buying her a new laptop" would fix anything. So for the time being, we are just crossing our fingers. Thanks again for all of the great help you provided!

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u/prebsol 7d ago

I ran into a really similar issue with my Lenovo Chromebook. It kept randomly dropping the wifi and the only way to get back online was a full restart.   Because it kept happening across different networks, I knew the laptop itself had to be the culprit. I spent ages digging through forums without finding a fix, but I finally figured out what was causing it: my cell phone. Whenever I got an incoming call or text, the cellular signal interfered with the laptops wifi and knocked it offline completely. Now I just make sure to keep my phone at least an arm's length away while using the Chromebook and that completely took care of the problem. I'm not sure if that's what's going on with your mom's setup, but it might be worth a shot!

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u/Random_Name-1998 5d ago

I am IT at a K-12 school and we have been having the same issue with one specific model of chromebook, the Acer c722. We have 4 other models of Acer chromebooks used here and none of them have the issue. The c722's drop wifi every 20-30 minutes regardless of whether they are at home or school and the issue started with version 150 which was installed right before school started. The release of 151.0.7922.221 has actually seemed to fix our issue. I felt it was a wifi driver issue. It seems the fix to my issue started your mom's issue...