Reusing technology by reviving an old laptop is a simple way to do it, but connectivity can be frustrating. For instance, if your old laptop doesn’t detect your Wi-Fi network and others can — don’t worry that’s something that can be fixed easily.
Why Can’t My Laptop Detect the Wi-Fi Router?
Often your laptop is not compatible with modern Wi-Fi standards and this is the source of the problem. Most new routers are Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), and older laptops with legacy Wi-Fi cards like Intel N7260 won’t detect these networks. If the router is set to broadcast only according to the most recent standards, this is especially so.
Fix Wi-Fi Detection Issues That You Can Try
1. Adjust Your Router Settings
The easiest fix to ensure that your router supports older Wi-Fi standards is to modify it.
Steps to Adjust Router Settings:
- Open your browser and type in your router’s IP address (that’s most likely 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1).
- Enter your admin username and password.
- Find Wireless Settings for the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz bands.
- If possible, change the network standard to b/g/n or b/g n/ax.
- Restart the router and save changes.
Note: It may cut down your router's maximum speed and performance in order to be more compatible with older devices.
2. At times, Wi-Fi drivers for your laptop are not updated.
Sometimes an outdated driver has caused the problem. Here’s how to update it:
- Here’s how to do it on your laptop: Open Device Manager.
- You’ll need to look for your wireless network adapter under “Network Adapters.”
- Select Update Driver right clicking on it.
- Select Search automatically for updated driver software.
- Visit the manufacturer’s website, download the latest driver for your model, and if there are no updates found, then just apply the existing driver.
Caution: When the card gets too old and if the card is discontinued, there will be no update drivers available.
3. Use an External Network Card
An external Wi-Fi adapter is a great solution if driver updates won’t work and you don’t want to downgrade your router’s settings.
- Why Choose This Option?
- Wi-Fi 6 compliant.
- Easy to install via USB.
- Great for older laptops, and cheap and effective.
All of these may sound good on paper, but what if none of them work?
If your laptop still struggles to connect:
- To eliminate the router issue, connect your device to another devices.
- If you can’t upgrade the internal Wi-Fi card, as usually you can, and as he recommends, don’t have a hassle and stick to an external adapter.
Key Takeaways
Older laptops often have outdated hardware that doesn’t support ‘modern’ Wi-Fi networks.
Usually the problem can be fixed by adjusting your router settings to allow older standards.
Reliable alternative is updating drivers or using an external Wi-Fi card.
Once you’ve got a chance to troubleshoot, chances are you can get your old laptop connected to the network and making the rest of your systems happy.