WIFI range to laptop

[muletopia (Chris)]

My old Win 7 Lenovo T420 died. So I replaced it with a Win 10 Lenovo T460S from Reboot It.
The T420 in my observatory connected to WIFI router in my office in the house


The T460S does not. So I bought a TP-link USB Mini Wireless Adapter,Archer T2U, which is compatible with my TP-link WIFI router. I downloaded and installed the drivers for the new USB device and the Win 10 device manager, USB port list shows the adapter as "working".


However as I walk out to my ob the WIFI signal cuts out with or without the adapter, so it appears to me that the device is not working.
Have I missed something in the setup,a sin of omission or commission?
Clues from the Windows literate would be appreciated by this Linux person.


Chris

[oska (John)]

I'm guessing, are you actually using the new adapter? It sounds like your using the inbuilt one. I mean is windows configured in "network an internet settings" to use the new adapter? It can be "installed" and "working" but not actually being used. I think you can disable the inbuilt one from the Lenovo utilities thingy or "network an internet settings".

[muletopia (Chris)]

I Tried the device manage but to no avail.
I went to the Lenovo BIOS. The Security tab has two LAN tabs,
disabling the fires removes all communication to my wireless router.
Re-enabling the first tab and disabling the second maintained communication.
I left the bios but did not start windows. I walked to my ob and communication was indicated.
When I logged into windows the indication was no connection,
What else is there to try?
Chris

[oska (John)]

I doubt you need to mess with bios.
From Network & Internet settings click on Change Adapter Options (on the right) and you should see both adapters. From there you can right click on each one and either disable it or force it to connect.

[muletopia (Chris)]

You are correct no BIOS fiddling required.

The tp link device was activated as follows
change adapter options
WIFI2 (tplink device)right click
select connect/disconnect


ask to connect, the network security key is asked for


enter that ( it is on the back of the WIFI router)


That does it.
It also disconnects MB adapter


Good.
Go for a walk, with disappointment I found that the range of the TP link adapter was not sufficient.
Come back inside and remove the TP-Link adapter, Windows then restores the internal adapter.


So I guess the next trick is to find a USB WIFI adapter with more range.


Chris
PS. The reason that I want WIFI in the ob is so that I can connect to the windows time server and set it to check every 15 seconds

[oska (John)]

Ok. Then it's as you suspect a signal strength/gain thing. Does your adapter have an external aerial? (googling give pix of both) We found when using raspberry pi's in an industrial environment that using the usb adapters with the external aerial fixed any wifi issues we were having. The onboard or stubby usb couldn't cut it.

[muletopia (Chris)]

Hello John,
Postal deliveries to rural WA take some time, but today I collected a powerful TP-Link external adapter, T4U plus. That does the job. Two/three bars on the WIFI connection in my Sirius Ob 100 metres from the TP-Link router in the house.
Now to set the windows time server interval, I tried the methods in this link


https://www.thewindowsclub.com/chang...terval-windows


But using the second method I could not get 30 seconds to stick.
Also the path to the option was just a little different to that specified.
Chris

[oska (John)]

30 secs seems severe? The PC/laptop clock should be reasonably accurate for at least a couple of hours?
Did you run regedit as administrator?
How different was the reg path?

[muletopia (Chris)]

'morning John,
Siderealtechnology with Servo11 actually recommend 15 seconds whilst building the mount model.
No, I did not run as administrator, I will give that a go.
Chris

[muletopia (Chris)]

'evening John,
I took your advice to run as administrator, the directions in that article then worked like a charm.
I don't know if the Windows administrator privileges are equivalent to Linux sudo or sudo su.


For any one else, to set in time synchronisation period on a Win 10 computer the following command run as administrator is how to do it,


Chris



Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\ Config\UpdateInterval

[oska (John)]

No worries

Yes, basically sudo

[Stephane]

I have the same one. It took me a while to work out that when you select the wifi on your laptop, you need to select “wifi2”, then select the network you want. Apparently, the usb antenna only works when you select “wifi2”. Not sure if you already knew this or not, but if not, I think that will solve your issues.

Regards,
Stéphane

[muletopia (Chris)]

Thanks for your post Stephane.
I had discovered the need to set WIFI2 when experimenting with my first dongle,


Chris

[muletopia (Chris)]

Well folks,
Tonight a session was had in the ob, the internet stayed connected (it often drops out here) and the sky stayed clear just long enough to to build a mount model in Sitech for my Mesu mount 200 MK1. With time synchronisation every 30 seconds the model build was successful. Unlike the attempt without time sync which produces an error plot just along the RA axis. Now the error plot looks reasonable with errors about both axes.


I was also pleasantly surprised that the TP-Link dongle worked plugged into my powered USB hub.


So with guidance fro John from IIS a good outcome.


Chris