Public WiFi: limited connection (no Internet) -- new ASUS Zenbook 1

[Rlah]

ASUS Zenbook UX305FA, new on 6/8/15. Fron Microsoft Store, no bloatware. Win 8.1.

I'm getting no replies from Microsoft's Answers community, so I figured to get back to this forum that seemed to have *real* experts for me in the past. I'm copying the following from that forum:

New from MS Store yesterday, Win 8.1, connected quickly to home wifi (Frontier DSL). BUT went to Barnes & Noble this morning and only got a "limited connection" after a slow process, NO Internet. Even nearby McDs and BestBuy public wifi resulted in the same "limited connection", i.e. no Internet.
BUT after repeat attempts, the McD's connection finally produced a sign-on screen (in Chrome browser) with them and I had a slow connection (across the parking lot). So I again tried the BestBuy wifi and after maybe 10 seconds if too produced a sign-on screen and I had Internet -- much faster because it is next door to B&N. Soooo, I again tried the B&N public wifi but it only remained at a limited connection -- no Internet.
I was anxious to see what would happen when I got home... opened it up and my home wifi popped right in and I'm composing this message on this new Zenbook.
The Microsoft Store offers 90 days phone support so I called them. To make a long story short:
Device Manager ->
[ul]
[li]updated drivers for Network Adapter (2 Bluetooth Devices, 1 Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265)[/li]
[li]Cmd Prompt (Admin) -> Netsh winsock reset (enter, restart)[/li]
[/ul]
After these steps, my home wifi still works normally with no dropouts for the first 2 days. So I struck out across town...
1) Lowes hardware store: locked on almost immediately with 1 of the options to go to the host's webpage to sign in. A quick sign in yielded a good, fast connection.
2) Went to a nearby Target store, but their outside signal was not very strong outside and would not connect successfully.
3) Home Depot: Almost immediate signin screen came up (as fast as Lowes) and got a good Internet connection.
4) Nearby McDonalds was next: had some trouble, so moved car closer to building. Had sporadic successes, but somewhat frustratingly slow... Hmmm.
5) Went to downtown library. In the parking lot, with 2 bars out of 5 bars strength, it would not connect. My Chromebook would probably have connected. So I went inside where I got 5 bars strength, and it connected rather quickly.
6) When I came home, my wifi is normal and fast.
So, although I'm somewhat encouraged with the successes so far, I am apprehensive about general usage of public wifi networks. We are accustomed to the ease that our Android phones & tablets connect to public wifi... even my Chromebook has no problems.
Does anyone have any comments, or possible solutions to make public wifi work better? Should I keep this unit or return it and wait for Win10 to possibly get better connectivity?
Thanks in advance for any assistance


rlah

 

[Rlah]

cdogg:
Interesting idea. Sounds like you did the legwork to confirm the HP has the same Intel adapter. And I see they stock it in my Best Buy store... so it should not be too much hassle. Maybe if I need a break at B&N sometime soon, I'll wander over there to see about testing your idea.

BTW, Asus has not responded to my notice that their solution did not work. I get a little nervous about their level of support sometimes...





rlah

 

[xwb]

On some of the laptops, the antenna is the screen. If you lie it flat, the reception is not as good as if the screen is upright. Took me ages to work that one out.

 

[goombawaho]

You've got a lot of startup items there in the taskbar that I have spied with my little eye. You may want to minimize those if they all aren't needed.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[Rlah]

xwb:
Screen position is always up... and much better with the TP-Link Nano N adapter, at least in the bookstore. Go figure... how that tiny adapter gives me a 5-bar full strength in the bookstore. -- At home, the factory adapter is still used to connect to my home wifi... seems to work fine by figuring out which adapter for each situation by itself.

goombawaho:
What you see are icons in my resurrected "Quick Launch" toolbar. This was a feature of earlier Windows and I have always done the extra steps to get it back, ever since either XP or Vista had it as a standard feature... I think it was originally on the left side of the bottom taskbar but now its on the right side. I have a lot of utilities that I want handy for quick use...
= = = = = = = = = =
Update:
Correspondence from Asus support tech suggested I change BIOS to an earlier version, but when I suggested this might be downgrading my new machine, he backed off and offered to take it back for "repair"... of course I declined this offer. Would anyone want to hazard a guess as to whether a "repair" would actually fix this problem?
= = = = = = = = =
Factoid:
At the Microsoft Store in Indy yesterday (where I purchased their Extended Warranty), I asked how an upgrade to Win10 would impact the factory recovery partition. They said that a new partition would be installed for the recovery partition for an upgrade to Win10... which will take up more space on my 256 GB SSD

rlah

 

[goombawaho]

Sounds like they know there's an issue. You could ask to get a refund or to get credit for a different product based on the fact that the product had problems right out of the box. And I don't think it's just your computer. It's probably all of them.

You could take an image of the entire hard drive with a backup program and then remove the recovery partition and roll the space into the operating system partition. Then if you had to, you'd have the original configuration for recovery on a backup drive somewhere. I would probably do one BEFORE Windows 10 and then AFTER so you have options for recovery.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[linney]

How to create a system image to refresh your Windows 8 PC

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2748351

How to create a custom refresh image in Windows 8

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/create-custom-refresh-image-in-windows-8/

On a working Windows 8.1 machine, see Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Recovery\Create a Recovery Drive.

Create a Recovery Drive and use that to boot from in a faulty machine and try accessing the advanced startup options/safe mode.

When you create a Recovery Drive you are given the option (via a check box) to copy across the hidden recovery partition from your machine. If you choose that option then the size of USB required will be many times larger than if you don't choose the option.