2017 Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Laptop Not Detecting TP-Link Deco X20's Mesh Wi-Fi

virhlpool on 22/12/2023 - 08:45
Last edited 23/12/2023 - 11:01 by 2 other users

I have this laptop that I bought a few years back through one of the deals on OzBargain.

It was working fine with older modem but since I recently moved to TP-Link Deco X20 (using it directly with default NBN modem/box), the laptop has stopped detecting the mesh Wi-Fi network. That's the only device in my home which doesn't pick up the network, which is weird. The laptop works well with phone hotspot etc so there's nothing wrong with the laptop as such. I checked the internet driver and it is the latest driver. I also tried running Deco only on 2.4GHz instead of both bands but the laptop still wouldn't detect the network.

Laptop is still in a decent condition so throwing isn't a great idea. Can someone suggest what could be done?

Thanks.

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  kfp187 on 22/12/2023 - 10:17

  Welcome to TP-Link :)

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  nige0090 on 22/12/2023 - 15:28

  I had a similar issue with a Dec0 x60 and a Dell laptop.
  The problem was that Windows by default had installed an older network (realtek?) driver.
  Once I installed the current driver from the manufacturer, everything worked fine.

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  a20c87 on 22/12/2023 - 15:44

  Is it possible that the Wi-Fi security setting on the Deco is too new for the old laptop? If I recall correctly, I experienced something similar in the past where the solution was to change the WPA3 value to something like WPA2. If this does the trick, it sounds like it wouldn't be as secure as the original setting (I'm not an IT security expert so you may want to do your own research). It might be best to purchase a modern adapter.

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    virhlpool on 22/12/2023 - 19:17

    What do you mean by purchasing an adaptor? Isn't it inbuilt in laptop?

    On a separate note, can a laptop have an external plugin (USB) wifi receiver which could bypass this issue?