For the past few months, my Windows 10 desktop computer’s wired Internet connection has been laggy and slow. When first browsing to a website, it would sometimes pause for 30 seconds before loading the page. And download speeds were slow, 60-80 Mbps (according to Speedtest).
Change DNS
I thought the first lag issue might be caused by my Spectrum Internet provider’s slow DNS resolution so I modified my desktop to use Google DNS by doing the following:
- Run “View network connections” to open Control Panel’s Network Connections panel.
- Right-click on Ethernet (or whatever your Ethernet adapter is named) and select Properties.
- Select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” and click on the Properties button. (Or double-click on it.)
- In the General tab, select “Use the following DNS server addresses”.
- Input Google DNS 8.8.8.8 (preferred) and 8.8.8.4 (alternate).
After applying the changes above and rebooting, the browsing lag issue still occurred. It wasn’t a problem with the DNS resolution.
Bad Ethernet Port
I then looked into the second speed issue. The slow speed was strange because I was paying for Spectrum 1 Gbps Internet Cable and my desktop was connected by wire to the router. Also, the Ethernet port on my HP ProDesk 400 G3 MT desktop was rated for gigabit speed. I should be getting close to 1 Gbps, not the 50-80 Mbps that I was getting. Spectrum’s internal speed test showed that the cable modem reached close to 1 Gbps so the problem was on my end.
I replaced the Ethernet cables between the cable modem and the router and between the router and my desktop. Speedtest then showed over 800 Mbps results. I thought the problem was solved. However, several hours later, when I double-checked, the speed had dropped back to below 80 Mbps. I connected the desktop directly to the cable modem and the speed was still slow. I tested a wired connection with my MacBook and it consistently went over 800 Mbps. I can only conclude that the Ethernet port on the HP desktop was malfunctioning. (I was not surprised because recently, my niece’s HP desktop’s motherboard had started malfunctioning with intermittent CPU pauses and lags. I made a mental note to never buy HP computers again.)
Because I couldn’t use a wired connection, I decided to try the wireless route. I purchased and installed the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 wireless PCIe card. The AX210 supported the latest 802.11ax protocol and 3 frequency bands (2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz). I had used an Intel Wireless-AC 9260 card in the past and it was rock solid. So, I figured the latest Intel AX210 would be reliable and trustworthy. I was wrong.
While the Intel AX210 gave me over 400 Mbps speed, it would also randomly and intermittently disconnect for 8-10 seconds. This would occur a few times an hour and made using the Internet very unpleasant. (Minorly, when browsing a website, the page loading would lag for a second or two before loading. Still much better than the 30 seconds lag time previously.)
Downgrade AX210 Driver Version
I searched for fixes and found that the Intel AX210’s intermittent disconnect problem had been known since 2023. A 2024 Intel forum post, Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz Frequent Disconnects], suggested that the disconnect issue was caused when the wireless card tried to re-authenticate over WPA2 security. Evidently this only occurred with some routers (most likely, older routers that did not support the 802.11ax protocol like my Linksys WRT1900ACSv2). The fix was provided by the version 22.110.11 driver. Unfortunately, that fix did not seem to be included in later versions so it was suggested to downgrade the driver to 22.110.1.1.
Just to be sure, I downloaded and installed the latest version 24.10.0.4 driver (which had not been provided by “Windows Update” yet). The latest version did not address the issue because my desktop still exhibited the intermittent disconnections.
I then downgraded to version 22.110.1.1 by doing the following:
- Uninstall the current driver but running “Device Manager”, opening “Network adapters”, locating the “Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160Mhz” device, left-clicking on it and selecting “Uninstall device”, and checking the “Delete the driver software for this device” option.
- Download the version 22.110.1.1 driver for Intel AX210 and install it.
- Reboot the computer.
Check the wireless driver version by running “Device Manager”, opening “Network adapters”, locating the “Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160Mhz” device, left-clicking on it and selecting Properties, open the Driver tab, and look for “Driver Version”.
- If you do not see “22.110.1.1”, you will probably see a version newer than that. Follow the step one instructions above to uninstall the device and delete that particular driver version. Reboot and check the version after restarting. Repeat if necessary until you see the “22.110.1.1” version. (What you are doing is deleting all driver versions newer than the target “22.110.1.1” version from the Windows OS.)
Version 22.110.1.1 appeared to solve all my problems. Both the lag and disconnect issues seemed to be gone. However, long-term testing (over two days) revealed that I still experienced a pause a couple of times a day. If the Wi-Fi did not disconnect (20 seconds), it would pause Internet access for about 10 seconds. Still, a couple of times a day versus a few times an hour is a drastic improvement. The downgrade version fix worked 99% and using the Internet was a pleasure again.
Prevent Updates
Note that the latest version of the AX210 driver will show in “Windows Update” as an optional driver update. If you have automatic updates enabled, it may get installed, overwriting the old 22.110.1.1 version. To prevent this (if you don’t wish to disable automatic updates), you may hide the Intel AX210 update by doing the following:
- Download and run the Microsoft “Show or hide updates” tool.
- Click Next. After the scan completes, select the “Hide updates” action.
- You will see a list of pending updates. In my case, I saw three entries related to the Intel wireless driver (though it doesn’t say AX210 specifically):
- “Intel – net – 23.150.0.4”
- “Intel – net – 23.170.0.1”
- “Intel Corporation Driver Update (24.10.0.4)”
They are the different versions of the Intel AX210 driver newer than “22.110.1.1” that are available for upgrade. (Note that “Windows Update” will only show the latest “24.10.0.4” version.)
- Select all three and proceed to hide them from “Windows Update”.
In the future, versions newer than “24.10.0.4” will show up in “Windows Update” and you will need to manually hide them.
Future Problems
I thought about buying a new wireless card or Ethernet port expansion card, but the quality of HP computers makes me uneasy. I believe that the HP motherboard is probably on the way out. Usually if a built-in part of the motherboard goes bad, this indicates that the motherboard is in the process of dying. So, I will live with it for now and if/when the motherboard dies, I might just get a new motherboard which should have a working built-in Ethernet port.
Or more radically, I may just use my MacBook as a docked desktop computer. Windows 10 won’t be supported after October 2026 and I don’t feel like buying a new desktop computer (or at least, an 8th generation Intel CPU supporting TPM 2.0 and compatible motherboard/memory) just to run Windows 11. Besides, I haven’t played a 3D-intensive video game for years so one of the main reasons for a Windows PC is no longer valid. The MacBook should be sufficient for all my needs: web/mobile software development, Word/Excel processing, web browsing, watching videos, listening to music, and playing casual 2D games.
By the way, the thing I most dislike about macOS is the Finder. In my opinion, the Finder is a generation or two behind the Windows File Explorer in how it displays and handles folders and files (very badly). But my Mac fanatic friends tell me that like with any macOS issue, I can pay for a 3rd party utility to fix that. Oh well, you can’t get everything you want in life. We’ll see.