Member Avatar for steve_17

Why am I able to pick up wifi signal from my neibor on my galaxy s4 phone but not my home pc. I have the latest wifi card installed. It jyst seems to me if my phone will pick up a certain wifi signal then my computer should.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rubberman

Dani AI

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Several helpful replies already point toward wireless differences; the notes below add practical checks and commands that weren't covered by , , or . These focus on hardware, driver/OS state, and quick isolation steps so the cause can be identified without guessing.

Confirm hardware and Windows services

  • Ensure the PC's wireless adapter appears enabled in Device Manager and that there is no physical radio switch or Fn-key disable active.
  • On desktop PCI/PCIe cards, verify both antenna connectors are firmly attached and the card is fully seated.
  • Check the Windows service that manages wireless profiles (WLAN AutoConfig) is running and set to Automatic.
  • Temporarily disable any third‑party firewall/AV that might hide network lists while testing.

Quick diagnostics (command line)
Run these from an elevated Command Prompt to see adapter capabilities, visible SSIDs and to reset the network stack:

netsh wlan show drivers
netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset

Reboot after the reset commands. The first two commands reveal what the adapter reports; the last two clear driver/stack corruption.

Driver and hardware isolation
Install the vendor-supplied adapter driver (avoid the generic driver from the OS), or roll back if the problem began after an update. If feasible, test with a known-good USB Wi‑Fi adapter: if the USB device sees networks the internal card does not, the issue is almost certainly the original card (antenna, seating, or compatibility). If the USB adapter also fails, the problem is likely environmental or OS-level and the network-stack reset plus driver reinstall are the next steps.

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Member Avatar for andrevanzuydam

Galaxy S4 is able to pick up 5GHz networks, I have found this situation also where laptops will not pick up a network but my mobile devices will. The thing you need to find out is what mode the wifi is broadcasting on, there are a couple, perhaps this needs to be indicated to your home pc via the wireless settings and then there is the channel. Make sure that the channel is not different on your pc from the broadcasting wireless router. Download a wireless network tool for your adapter and see if you can't discover the network. Another cool trick that I've learnt is that an Ubuntu live CD is great for troubleshooting, most cases it picks up the hardware and configures everything then I am able to see if there is really a hardware issue. Believe it or not, things work in Linux which don't work in Windows (I am assuming of course you are on a Microsoft operating system). If you are on a Mac computer there are some other things you can try. I will wait for your response.

Member Avatar for Hey_1

i think you have given some IP Address. Go to Internet Protocol Version 4 and Click on Obtain an IP address Automatically.

Member Avatar for rubberman

WiFi access points can run at 2.4 or 5 GHz. It may be that your PC doesn't support the frequency of the AP, such as 5GHz as mentioned, which the Galaxy phone does. If you go to the wireless network settings of the Galaxy, it may tell you what frequency the AP is using.

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