Router Wi-Fi connection goes down when a computer is shut down

[Sybertiger]

RX-86U Asus Router's Wi-Fi connection stops working when one of the computers on the network is shutdown for the evening.

Let me be specific...

Girlfriend's company issued laptop is connected to the router via Cat6 cable. She powers it up in the morning then at the end of the day she does a shutdown. When she does it causes the Wi-Fi of this router to stop working. But, it only does it SOMETIMES. Maybe once every 3 to five days...not every time.

When I say the Wi-Fi stops working l'm referring to my Wi-Fi connected laptop and phone (and other Wi-Fi devices) cannot get internet access to the WWW. The radio connection is working as I see the devices are still connected via Wi-Fi but I can't surf the internet. Both 2.5Ghz and 5Ghz don't work. I have to reboot the Asus router before they work again.

The Asus router has the latest Merlin firmware installed.

Seems odd that shutting down a Cat6 connected computer affects Wi-Fi. She has her personal desktop computer connected via Cat6 too but shutting it down does not mess up the Wi-Fi.

Additional details: her work laptop uses Win11 and uses work VPN to access work servers, all the other computers are Win10.

Any ideas on what might be going on?

 

[mikeynags]

The 2 should not be related. Was the internet ever working without the laptop in the environment? That wifi router should be maintaining the internet connection regardless of what is connected to it or VPN's through it. I would start with making sure the router is 100% functional before correlating the internet issue to her laptop.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

The Asus router has the latest Merlin firmware installed.

Have your ruled out the specific physical port on the asus her work laptop is connecting to? Does the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware have any log functions you can enable/review?

Latest firmware does not necessarily equate to 100% trouble-free. Any chance you can roll back to a previous stable release?

Has anyone else on the Asuswrt-Merlin forums reported similar issues?

 

[jrbeddow]

Agree with the other posts, although probably not directly caused by the firmware (latest or otherwise). You may want to bite the bullet and do a full factory reset to defaults on your router and manually reconfigure from screenshots (do NOT restore from a complete backup config file, as appealing as that may sound, as it will likely just put you back in the same mess as before). About the only thing you can safely restore are the OpenVPN certificates and config files if you want to re-use that previous setup.

If you still have a problem, then it is a physical layer issue: either a cable or flaky port related problem.