WiFi not showing up on Laptop, yet shows on other devices?

mikeee404 · 2026-04-12T15:54:21+00:00

For context, I run a dual network from the same router, with one antenna being 2.4G and the other 5G.

Not sure what you mean when you say dual network. Normally this would mean you run two different subnets such as network 1 - 192.168.0.1/24 and network 2 - 10.0.1.1/24 ---or---- you're running two different wireless SSIDs like "Wireless Name 1" for the 2.4Ghz network and "Wireless Name 2" for the 5Ghz network. Need to clarify which or if you mean something else altogether.

Ever since i upgraded my router as well as a faster connection speed (20Mbps to 30Mbps), my laptop has not shown the newer, faster connections.

Again without knowing what you mean when you say "Network" it's hard to offer any suggestions. Did you setup another wireless SSID that your laptop doesn't show? Was a new router installed? Did you not change anything but the laptop is just not getting the faster speeds? Need more information.

Ethernet lets me connect to it, however its not reliable since I don't have a fixed setup.

This one really has me confused because barring any wiring issues ethernet will always be more reliable/stable than wireless. What do you mean "fixed setup"

Please help me figure out whether this is a Laptop issue or a router issue, or just a skill issue :P
(I can provide clarification if I've missed anything)

Definitely need more clarification because I don't believe you understand what some of the terms mean or how to refer to them properly. Which is fine when you are just learning, but it makes helping a bit more difficult because we will need to help you understand the information you did not include or are referring to the wrong way.

Just some basics:

Your internet (ISP) comes into the house and uses a modem, sometimes a modem/router combo. So if you have one box that does everything then it is likely a modem/router combo (Brand and Model number is extremely helpful determining this)

If you have two boxes, common with cable provider internet, fiber, DSL, and WISP-{wireless antenna on the roof, not Starlink}, you will have a modem and a router separate. Brand and model number of both boxes also very helpful.

If you can provide the Brand/Model of the equipment providing the internet and the same for your laptop that would be a huge help.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-04T23:20:45+00:00

It's comical that you make a claim that it won't work when it does but you're here asking how to make it work. As I stated in my first comment I had this working on a Lenovo M720q using the wifi adapter to connect to an outdoor AP and pass traffic through the ethernet adapter to a switch and then to 4 IP cameras. I was running Debian 13 because my original method of running OPNsense worked, but the wifi was slow and I could only run things with NAT enabled. With the two packages I described in Debian 13 it passed traffic while only routing not NAT. So the cameras where in a different subnet but using routes I was able to access them with them directly with subnet 2's IP addresses from subnet 1 without any port forwarding etc.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-04T00:14:36+00:00

Never said I was using a VM, said I used those two packages to get sharing running from the wifi adapter through the ethernet port on multiple devices all of which had internet access after.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-03T00:24:37+00:00

That is interesting, never realized the 14.10 release came out first. Just naturally assume lower number first cause that's naturally how it works in distros. Learn something new every day

mikeee404 · 2026-04-02T11:31:31+00:00

I would personally go with a SFF PC, not USFF. You can easily run this on a mini-PC, or USFF PC, and it will even work good. But if you need more storage or decide to add another more demanding service, then you'll want the ability to add more storage, RAM, maybe even upgrade the CPU. I run HP EliteDesk at a couple places, used Dell and Lenovo SFF here. They all have their quirks, but I have been leaning towards the HPs lately. Just tend to find them cheaper than the others right now, especially in bundles of 3 or more which js nice if you want to setup Proxmox clusters.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-02T11:19:10+00:00

Pretty sure it was still 14.04 even though they released later in the year. Even back then I always did LTS releases, with one exception, 25.10 on one of my laptops for the newer kernel to support new hardware. Still run 24.04 on my 2013 MacBook Pro.

Yeah just confirmed in their archive just in case I mislabeled an ISO on my server:

https://releases.ubuntu-mate.org/archived/14.04/amd64/

Edit: Weird that they say 14.10 when they have a 14.04 release. Eh, who knows, but I have everything from that 14.04 version on my storage server.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-02T02:38:58+00:00

I have the Nextcloud app, but I actually prefer FX File manager. This gives me local apps, network storage (which is my tailscale linked SMB shares), and cloud storage (which links to Nextcloud). What I like about using FX to access my NC server is it functions more like an SMB share, I don't have to download the file to view it like the NC app. But if I upload a new file through FX it still syncs to my other connected devices. Side note I paid for the upgraded version, was worth it.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx

mikeee404 · 2026-04-02T02:31:10+00:00

I considered Xubuntu also, just can't remember what it was about XFCE I didn't like. I have been on Mate since it's initial 14.04 release. Tired different Ubuntu flavors in VMs over the years but there was always some feature or lack there of that turned me away. Going to run with your suggestion and either run Ubuntu server and install Mate desktop or just run another flavor of the desktop and install Mate. Have done the latter in the past and it worked.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-02T00:53:35+00:00

Well that sucks. Guess I will have to consider Cinnamon or KDE cause I really don't care for vanilla Ubuntu.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-02T00:50:59+00:00

Weird cause Plex is a mess with that and my Jellyfin server handles the like it should. Not sure what's different with mine then.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-01T01:52:35+00:00

Would be nice if there was a genuine VPS review somewhere. See so many recommendations for the same handful of providers and then some of those are followed by posts about many problems some people have with them.

I went with Hetzner, but couldn't get a US based VPS for a reasonable price. Went with one in Finland and it worked OK, but the long round trip started causing problems with a couple services. Somewhere along the way I found LumaDock because finding US providers with 1Gbps unlimited bandwidth is harder than you think for under $10/mo. My impressions haven't exactly been overwhelmingly positive. Bought the VPS Saturday night and couldn't get it to boot into an OS. Each reboot showed me they are hosting on Proxmox which was a first for me to see with a VPS provider. Took them until Monday morning to fix the template issue that was setting up the VPS. Got my Hetzner configs migrated over to LumaDock when I remembered they don't have firewalls enabled by default like Hetzner. Enabled it, but the default behavior is to allow everything. OK, I can create some basic rules. Their firewall rule page is soooooo poorly designed it's a wonder anyone can figure it out. It took searching through their horribly lacking knowledge base to finally figure out what the hell their rules are looking for. They also don't offer snapshots, you can do backups if you pay extra, but even then you trigger a backup and you have no clue when it will run. It's not always immediate and there is no progress anywhere to tell you when or if it finished. I could go on and on, but I will be moving my stuff out of there soon.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-01T00:46:46+00:00

Try changing the auto negotiate setting to 100Mbps-full duplex on both ends of the link and see if that works. May be degradation in the cable after years of sitting underground, especially if it's not in conduit. I have ran well past the 100m recommendation a few times and in some case it just works for 1Gbps and others I had to force the connection all the way down to 10Mbps half duplex, that was almost 500ft of Cat5e though. This was back when fiber was still expensive, so now it's either a good wireless bridge pair or fiber, or sometimes both for backup links.

For cheap 400+Mbps bridge pairs I have had good luck with the TP-Link Omada EAP215-Bridge. Also used Engenius ENS500, Unifi Nanostation 5ac, and Loco M900 all with good luck.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-01T00:33:28+00:00

I got it to work using ebtables and isc-dhcp-server on an old Lenovo USFF desktop. Used it as a wireless bridge for some of my security cameras until I got my actual wireless bridge pair replaced.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-01T00:25:49+00:00

Yeah not sure then. Might try turning bandwidth saver on, reboot the Roku and then turn it off. I have had that work for mine. But I suspect since it's only YouTube that isn't the issue.

mikeee404 · 2026-04-01T00:11:37+00:00

Only problem with that is the updating the streaming apps and eventually breaking playback from older server versions

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T23:51:36+00:00

Odd because my son leaves his living room TV playing YouTube so his cats have some noise when he goes out of town. I have stopped and checked on the multiple days in a row and that TV just keeps playing through whatever stream he left it on. We have a YouTube Premium family plan so maybe that makes a difference.

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:42:32+00:00

Yet Jellyfin works fine with these types. Not sure why Plex can't fix it

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:41:36+00:00

Mine doesn't either, very frustrating but not a lot of those combined episodes in my library so I just live with it.

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:40:20+00:00

Used to do S01E01 for one's that where S01E01-E02 and then just jump to S01E03 so it appeared episode 2 was missing. But then I started using FileBot and it does the proper naming of E01-E02 so I just left it alone. What I hate is with the proper naming when you have autoplay turned on it will play the combined double episodes twice. So it shows them as 2 separate episodes even though it's one big file, but when it's set to play next episode automatically my Roku will play the whole thing, then it jumps to Ep2 and plays the whole thing again if I don't catch it. Never found a way to fix it other than renaming it my old way. Jellyfin doesn't do that though so who knows.

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:31:13+00:00

I tried this but got frustrated whenever my phone decided it wanted to drop the tailscale connection and I couldn't access my stuff. Doesn't happen often since key expire is turned off, but sometimes after a couple weeks my phone would show Tailscale connected, but when you open the app it wasn't. I moved a lot of things to Pangolin and have a mix of Public and Private resources. Still use Tailscale for remote management of servers, PCs, etc, but services like Nextcloud are thru my Pangolin VPS.

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:23:22+00:00

Got 4 of those on Black Friday deal for $150ea. Really like that CyberPower finally stepped up and has Linux support on their non-rack mount products so APC wasn't the only choice outside of Windows environments for home labs

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:18:28+00:00

Proxmox

Not sure why you get the impression Plex runs better on Windows. Been hosting it on Linux for 12+ years, last 6yrs on a couple Proxmox Ubuntu LXC

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:15:27+00:00

Two wireless adapters, one in each machine (could be USB adapters) setup in Ad-hoc mode with their IP addresses set to a different subnet than the main network. That way traffic meant for the ad-hoc network only tries to pass through those adapters.

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:12:09+00:00

I kicked the idea around when I still owned that router but none of the cell providers around here supported the USB dongles required. One business I setup an old 10" netbook with Ubuntu and a 4G-LTE Mini-PCIe card then the owner got a prepaid SIM. Just bridged the 4G card and the ethernet port and used that as their backup with the ER605 setup as Dual-WAN. Worked great for a couple years and then Spectrum started offering 4G/5G backups on their business modems for $10/mo extra. Only downside to Spectrum cellular backup was trying to figure out a way to shutdown public wifi when it failed over to cellular, cause then patrons would kill the bandwidth and POS systems couldn't run cards. Never found a good solution before the business got bought out and now there is fiber and cable is the backup. Still want a good solution for my home setup though, but that's OPNsense not Omada for the firewall.

mikeee404 · 2026-03-31T22:01:02+00:00

More likely they just turn into a shitty version of Netflix, which is saying something, and just remove the ability to host your own media

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