Hey guys, to start out, this is an issue that's plagued me over the last few weeks at this point and I have no idea what to do, everyone I talk to can't figure it out, it's just so... weird.
I have a desktop right? It sits in my room, upstairs. My router and modem is downstairs and there's no cable port upstairs for me to setup the router in my room and I shouldn't have my computer downstairs because that's where family is and it's kind of an open area. So I have to use my desktop with wifi. So while I was building my computer and ordering my parts I got a PCI Network Card to go with my computer. Turns out that that one wasn't compatible with my computer and kept bluescreening it. Well crap, that's no good. Turns out my friend had a shitty PCI card laying around that I could use for the mean time, but it was only good for like 480p YouTube.
Because I have to use better wifi, I went on amazon and got a pretty neat wireless adapter, popularly used with like Raspberry Pi's and what not. It's the Panda Wireless USB PAU05. It worked phenomenally for a long time (like almost a full year) until randomly while I was using my computer watching a Twitch stream it stopped working. "Oh hey this has happened before, I'll just reset my modem and router." Well I did that, to no avail. Instead my computer would say that I'm connected with full signal strength to my network but I would have such a bad down/up that I couldn't even connect to Skype.
Turns out I still had that other PCI card in my computer so for shits and giggles I just used that one. "Huh that's weird, it seems like it's working. Well I guess that'll do while I troubleshoot." So at this point it seemed that my USB card was at fault, so I got on tech support with them. Their tech support was stumped because everything looked like it was working fine, except for it actually working. He asked what would happen in safe mode, I complied. The same thing happened, still bad internet. I could actually do a speedtest on safe mode and turns out I was getting .4 mbps down. For the record I pay for 60. So with their tech support stumped, they were very quick (quick in actually being tech support too, I got human interaction within like 10 minutes of my initial email. I was very impressed) to send me a replacement card, which I waited with bated breath for. Whelp that didn't work either.
The next logical option was to start up a thread on some tech support website and I got this guy to help me, he did a lot and we had a very extensive conversation but he gave up today actually after he admitted he was stumped.
Well while I was in that tech support forum I decided to call my ISP because who the hell knows what would happen. I play games like League and go on Steam so I'm constantly downloading stuff. My ISP's Charter and they've never capped me before but who knows. They said that everything was running fine on their end and there wasn't anything wrong with my household's account with Charter so no caps or anything, and he re-insured it must be on my end.
Well I brought my computer downstairs to see if it would connect to the internet through Ethernet (which I was sure it would because of my PCI card connected). And it did, with full speed.
I'm going to college and needed to get a laptop so I bought one off of Amazon and waited for it to arrive. Once it came I thought it would be interesting to see if the USB card worked on my laptop, and so I tested it, and it did work, full speed.
I have tested all the USB ports on my desktop computer and none of them "work" with the USB adapter. I tested all the ports with an external hard drive and they all worked for that.
I believe my story is told completely. I should be able to post the email thread I had with Panda Wireless tech support. I can link you the tech support forum thread. Uh... other facts that might prove useful: Windows 10, there was no restore point prior to the problem, my drivers were up to date, there were no restarts, windows updates, power failures, foul play, etc. between it working and not working.
Please help, my address is 123 HELP
I have a desktop right? It sits in my room, upstairs. My router and modem is downstairs and there's no cable port upstairs for me to setup the router in my room and I shouldn't have my computer downstairs because that's where family is and it's kind of an open area. So I have to use my desktop with wifi. So while I was building my computer and ordering my parts I got a PCI Network Card to go with my computer. Turns out that that one wasn't compatible with my computer and kept bluescreening it. Well crap, that's no good. Turns out my friend had a shitty PCI card laying around that I could use for the mean time, but it was only good for like 480p YouTube.
Because I have to use better wifi, I went on amazon and got a pretty neat wireless adapter, popularly used with like Raspberry Pi's and what not. It's the Panda Wireless USB PAU05. It worked phenomenally for a long time (like almost a full year) until randomly while I was using my computer watching a Twitch stream it stopped working. "Oh hey this has happened before, I'll just reset my modem and router." Well I did that, to no avail. Instead my computer would say that I'm connected with full signal strength to my network but I would have such a bad down/up that I couldn't even connect to Skype.
Turns out I still had that other PCI card in my computer so for shits and giggles I just used that one. "Huh that's weird, it seems like it's working. Well I guess that'll do while I troubleshoot." So at this point it seemed that my USB card was at fault, so I got on tech support with them. Their tech support was stumped because everything looked like it was working fine, except for it actually working. He asked what would happen in safe mode, I complied. The same thing happened, still bad internet. I could actually do a speedtest on safe mode and turns out I was getting .4 mbps down. For the record I pay for 60. So with their tech support stumped, they were very quick (quick in actually being tech support too, I got human interaction within like 10 minutes of my initial email. I was very impressed) to send me a replacement card, which I waited with bated breath for. Whelp that didn't work either.
The next logical option was to start up a thread on some tech support website and I got this guy to help me, he did a lot and we had a very extensive conversation but he gave up today actually after he admitted he was stumped.
Well while I was in that tech support forum I decided to call my ISP because who the hell knows what would happen. I play games like League and go on Steam so I'm constantly downloading stuff. My ISP's Charter and they've never capped me before but who knows. They said that everything was running fine on their end and there wasn't anything wrong with my household's account with Charter so no caps or anything, and he re-insured it must be on my end.
Well I brought my computer downstairs to see if it would connect to the internet through Ethernet (which I was sure it would because of my PCI card connected). And it did, with full speed.
I'm going to college and needed to get a laptop so I bought one off of Amazon and waited for it to arrive. Once it came I thought it would be interesting to see if the USB card worked on my laptop, and so I tested it, and it did work, full speed.
I have tested all the USB ports on my desktop computer and none of them "work" with the USB adapter. I tested all the ports with an external hard drive and they all worked for that.
I believe my story is told completely. I should be able to post the email thread I had with Panda Wireless tech support. I can link you the tech support forum thread. Uh... other facts that might prove useful: Windows 10, there was no restore point prior to the problem, my drivers were up to date, there were no restarts, windows updates, power failures, foul play, etc. between it working and not working.
Please help, my address is 123 HELP
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