WiFi response difference between two similar machines

Hello to the forum

I have a pair of Dell laptops here, one runs 24/7 to monitor the internet connection (long, long story) and the other is just used as a daily machine.
So the 24/7 machine is older and lower spec than the main machine. (ordinary i5 as opposed to i5 vPro 8th Gen)
Win 10 pro on both.
21H1 on the older one, 21H2 on the main.
I am spending hours complaining to our service provider about the quality of the connection with frequent breaks so I spend a long time looking at the wifi on both.
Just noticed that when there is a disconnect on the older monitoring machine (or for that matter a reconnect) it seems to catch on to the signal before the main machine.
That can be some few seconds ...
Just wondered if that is noticed by anyone else and if I should actually care ?
Not really an issue as the disconnects are the big problem .... just curious.

EDIT: I have "internet Connection Log" running with a 3 second (default) ping to test connection existence.

Paul

Running a ping test is bad it is in effect a DOS attack an lots of routers, gateways will drop the connection to protect its self. Are both pc using same band ie 2g 5g and do they both have simliar signal strenght?

Thank you Samuria - crikey that was quick.

I do not think my use of this thing has caused the problem as it was there long before I started to use the connection log thing.
This is on French Orange old rural copper with the last length of cable (external) replaced by Orange last week and the internal cable (cat5e) replaced by me.
Tested as fuly functional and delivering 7Mbps (that is big for us in the forest here) but after doing a tortuous "web chat" many times they just dial up the speed which has no long term benefit......... current speedtest showing a whisker over 10 Mbps now but with a reduction in upload.
Not a happy bunny here as there is the prospect of an online job interview soon ..... that will not be fun.
Going to de-camp to a friend if problem persists.
Orange are now talking of changing the whole cable to fibre / new copper (kilometres under tarmac somewhere !)

Soo do you think I should just stop the monitoring ? it has stayed connected for some hours recently but is unreliable ...... usually mornings and overnight is best. Monitoring is running through that period so perhaps not degrading connection ?

Anyway ..
Was just curious
Paul

EDIT: Machines side by side within three metres of router (also replaced).

Pinging servers no perpose what you need is to look at the router most can log details and tell you the problem and you can use that to show isp. What are you on ie adsl adsl2 or other often adsl you can change the tones and get a good signal. The problem can be noise and it may be in one range so switching range can miss the noise

I've found the level of Wireless adapter in a Notebook can be important, I have one with an 802.11g that is quite useful even with a newer Netgear Nighthawk Router with 802.11ac but for a particular need I use an 802.11ac USB dongle to get better download speed. A couple of Notebooks have 802.11n but my latest is 802.11ac, quite fast on a 25Mbps Wireless DSL Internet service.

Thank you Berton.

Not sure which adaptors in in these things ... (but it turns out both are 802.11ac).
Dont care about speed / bandwidth as all I need is an actual functioning connection with minimal oomph (technical term that ).

Paul
EDIT: Just looking and found that the drivers are different versions, both on 5GHz, both on channel 108, different speeds though (lower spec machine showing slightly higher at 866/866 Mbps with "better" machine at 780/866 Mbps

I posted an internet connection test that does not use Ping.
See my ditty - WWWTest #8 - ElevenForum

You might also consider monitoring & logging Event logs
Log - Microsoft-Windows-UniversalTelemetryClient/Operational
EventID - 55


Best of luck,
Denis

Paul,

I thought you must already be using a script to record the results of your Pings.
I believe that avoiding Ping is worthwhile because
- As Sumaria warned, you might trigger some anti-DDoS attack response from some servers
- If you are out & about, some public WiFi hotspots deliberately reject all Ping requests [for the same reasons]. My local library does, for example, and that's why I sought an alternative approach.
- My PS script tests the same thing that Windows does in order to change your Taskbar, SysTray [Notn area] icon to show you when you have an internet connection. So my PS script is not going to trigger a hostile response from any server.

I don't understand your Event viewer response. It is nothing like what I expected.
Since I think you will end up using my PS script, I don't want to go too far down this line but would like to clear this up quickly so you know you can rely on Event viewer in the future.
This is what my Event viewer tells me for that EventID


You can see the same results if you import my Event viewer, Custom view definition.
InternetTester.zip
Before importing it, you can read its unzipped xml file in Notepad or, for a better presentation of its contents, by right-clicking and opening in a browser.
To import it:
1 Unzip the file
2 Open Event viewer, click on Import Custom view [on the right-hand side, marked in green in my diagram],
3 Browse to and select the xml, Open,
4 Change the name if you want to then OK,
5 You can see the records within the group Custom views in Event viewer's left-hand pane just as I have illustrated.

Now you could go further by using Attach a task to this Custom view [on the right-hand side] but the mechanics of getting that to record the contents of an Event are really awkward with unexpected delays within Windows meaning that you have to wait a few seconds to be sure of capturing the data.
I only use this Custom view to look back during the day if I want to check when I was connected. I have other Custom views that record when the computer was sleeping, hibernating or off so I might need to compare these records to those in order to understand what has been happening.
All in all, I wish I had not mentioned the subject of Event viewer, Custom views. But I did. And you carried out an experiment because i did. So I thought I owed you a thorough explanation instead of merely dropping the subject.

I'll make a separate post about using a PS script to test & record your internet connection but please would you tell me how you have been recording it so far. That will allow me to tailor my explanations to your existing script
- Include the full path & filename of a text file you want to record your results in so I can write amended code specifically for you.
- I'm logging off within 18 mins to see a film but will be back sometime tomorrow.

All the best,
Denis

Updated 20220912 21:20

Pavl said:

I have a pair of Dell laptops here, one runs 24/7 to monitor the internet connection (long, long story)

Paul,

This is the script I suggest for you but I want to amend it to include the full path to where you want your output file [your internet connection log] in place of my suggested D:\Desktop\Paul-InternetRecorder.log.
- I suggest you choose a path & filename without any spaces or special characters such as Ampersands [&] in it.

I will also have to guide you in adding this script to run at regular intervals in Task scheduler but I want to make sure you can at least run the script manually first before going to that final stage.

Here are the contents of the draft script

Code:

### Written by Denis, Try3 - see https://www.tenforums.com/network-sharing/197911-wifi-response-difference-between-two-similar-machines-post2464115.html#post2464115 and following posts

$OutputTextFile = 'D:\Desktop\Paul-InternetRecorder.log'
$ThisDateTime = Get-Date

$ErrorActionPreference = 'silentlycontinue'
$WWWTest = Invoke-WebRequest http://www.msftconnecttest.com/connecttest.txt
If ($WWWTest -match 'Microsoft Connect Test') {$WWWConnection = $true} Else {$WWWConnection = $false}
"$ThisDateTime $WWWConnection" | Add-Content $OutputTextFile

And here is a copy you can download and run provided that you are able to edit it to change the path-filename yourself, otherwise you'll have to wait for me.
Paul-InternetRecorder.ps1
- You can read it & edit it by dropping it into a Notepad window.
- You can then run it by right-clicking on it & selecting Run with PowerShell

I'm late,
Bye,
Back tomorrow,
Denis