If your Windows 10 desktop or laptop suddenly lost the network connection and showed limited connectivity, here are the simple steps to fix it.
In this case, the Wi-Fi or Wired network can go offline and not be able to connect to the local network. It will impact the Internet and other network activities.
The below steps show how to fix the limited Wi-Fi connectivity issue in Windows 10, which also applies to the wired network.
If the Windows 10 network shows limited connectivity, the network adapter would not have an IP from the DHCP. If only one particular PC faces this issue at your work/home network, then apparently nothing is wrong with the network setup or DHCP server.
The particular Windows 10 laptop or desktop has some issues with the network adapter. When I encountered the same issue in my organization, the following steps helped me to solve it.
This problem is not specifically for the Wireless network adapter; it can also happen to your LAN wired network adapter. It’s an issue with the IP stack (IPv4 or IPv6 – based on which protocol you are using). Even though few solutions are suggested online, let me start with the possible (which worked for me straight away) solution, then other methods.
Updating or re-installing the WiFi adapter driver could solve some of the issues. But the limited connectivity issue in Windows 10/8.1 could be connected to IP address/DHCP. In this case, the network adapter will not get an IP address; hence it will be getting an APIPA address range, something like 169.245.x.x, which means you are in trouble.
The Solution for Limited Connectivity Wi-Fi on Windows 10
As described earlier, this is due to the IP address/IP stack problem, which can be resolved by resetting the TCP/IP stack to its default value. TCP/IP is a protocol used in most computers (including Mac, Linux, and Windows) and other network devices to communicate in LAN or WAN.
Use the NetShell utility (netsh.exe) command to perform the task.
1) Open the command prompt as Administrator. Search ‘cmd’ and right-click on cmd, then select ‘Run as administrator’ as below.
2) Type the following commands –
netsh winsock reset catalog (Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults)
netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log (Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults)
Source
3) Reboot the computer.
The Problem:
One of the above reset commands removes all persistent static route entries from the Windows 10/11 computer. I faced this issue and had to add those static routes again by the ‘route add’ command.
This will mostly solve the problem of a limited Wi-Fi connectivity issue in Windows 10 or 8.1.
4) If you still face the problem and your laptop can’t connect to the Internet and other local network resources, continue the below steps.
The following few more netsh commands may fix the problem. Ensure you enter the below commands in the command prompt, which was opened as Administrator.
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
I’m sure one of the above commands will fix the issue and make your Windows 10 network faster.
5) If your wired network is fine, but you are having trouble in the wireless network only, change the power options to wake up the WiFi Adapter.
Right-click on the WiFi adapter and select Properties.
Click on ‘Configure’.
In the ‘Power Management’ tab, uncheck the below option.
This will prevent Windows 10 from turning off the WiFi adapter during sleep or hibernation. Because when the laptop resumes sleep, the WiFi adapter may not wake up and work properly. Avoiding this built-in feature may help with proper wireless network connectivity in Windows 10.
6) As discussed here, having a 3rd party antivirus and personal firewall software such as BitDefender can also disturb the network connectivity in Windows 10/8.1.
Suppose none of the above solutions works, and you have a dedicated Antivirus software with a firewall enabled. In this case, you can uninstall it or find a way to allow Internet connectivity and IP requests in the firewall settings. It might help.
The below video explains how to reset Wi-Fi settings to default in Windows 10.
The latest Windows (with updates) and drivers, especially for Wi-Fi and LAN adapters, may not create limited WiFi connectivity or Windows 10 not getting IP address issues.
125 Comments
You’re a genius! Thanks. This happened to both my wife’s Surface Pro 4 and my Win 10 laptop tonight for no apparent reason and the first two commands fixed it for us. Thanks 🙂
yes, I most definitely second this comment. you ARE a genius! and thank you so much for taking the time to post this. wow. One thing though, I did have to reboot a few times before it worked.
thanks again
I tried the netsh commands. It’s still broken. Restating dhcp client in services will restore the connection via WIFI for awhile then a failure occurs after which any dhcp event fails to obtain the address. It has occurred on wired and wireless ethernet. Windows claims none of the dhcp servers responded in error reporting. After restarting dhcp client it then obtains an IP address within 10 seconds or less. Occasionally this has to be done twice. Often the network adapter will come up missing. Windows drivers were pointing to the oldest driver available and that was fixed by selecting the latest driver. This behavior has been observed on several win 10 and win 7 systems. DHCP client goes deaf. THis does not take long. Roaming between wifi fails. The PC will not reliably hold a net connection.
I used step 1-3 on my new win10 laptop, and it worked! Thanks! ??
I had the same problems and performed the commands in step 2, but then how do I do the route add command? Thank you.
Tried Steps 1-3 and it worked.
Thanks a lot sir.
i searched this tutorial since 2009
Thank you Dinesh! This certainly help me on my Windows 10 developer preview!
Fantastic, this did the trick for me!
Thank you. it work for me on my window 10 desktop after 2 steps.
I too had no internet after upgrading to Windows 10.
Your solution did not work for me.
WiFi would show, “Connected. No internet.”
Wired wouldn’t work either. The light on the network adapter was flashing fast orange as if to signify some sort of error.
ipconfig revealed a 169.254.x.x address.
After about 4 hours of troubleshooting, I uninstalled my anti-virus (Avast in this case) and restarted.
Everything works now.
Good luck everyone.
non of these things have worked for me. I am running windows 10 32 bit through parallels. why does Microsoft continue to put out trash like this.
Solved this problem which has annoyed me for some time using steps 1-3. Thank you.
Thank you! Resetting the winsock to installetion default and resetting the ipv4 stack worked like a charm, not only that but my network speed improved significantly.
Legend! It worked.
This worked for me. But I noticed in step 3 the 2nd command to enter needs to start with netsh etc etc.. Actually step 2 fixed my computer. Thanks for the info.
Worked for me in three different places.
Problems like this could break Microsoft.
If they could at leastvckear the stack once in a while Rather than thousands of people with Brocken computers?
Thanks for writing this up.
Do you know if the resets are device based or user based? I am seeing this issue on computers that have more than one user and I am trying to figure out if I need to do it once per machine or once per user.
Thanks!
You are the MVP!
Thank you, step 1-4 fixed it for me on a Windows 10 Desktop after a quick reboot.
Awesome! Thank you so much for this. It really helped.
Thanks I have had so many times I come to my computer to do home work and this device DHCP is not enabled and takes me an hour to get things going by changing to static and then letting the auto correct check whats wrong and then find the problem and fix it and turn back on the DHCP. I never knew all this so thank you for posting the fixes.
I have done all steps but I could not fix my problem. The only things that helped me was uninstalling the wireless network driver and replacing it with older driver.
Hi, I have a problem with de ipv4 protocol. I used to have the aternative configuration enabled without any problem and suddlenly it stop working. Now I have to write my static IP at work and back to home, I have to delete it and so on.. Help please, I use Windows 10. (Sorry for the bad english)
Hi, it did worked once but after it went back to being “Limited” none of the codes worked is there some way to configure the “Autoconfiguration IPv4” to other ip address.
Yes, in Internet Protocol Version 4 Properties, click on the Alternate Configuration tab and set it up with a valid and hopefully unused address for the network you expect to use.
First two commands with a restart fixed it for my mum’s laptop. Thanks heaps for posting this. Was causing her much grief!
😀
Second option worked for my windows 7 laptop. Thanks a lot.
So the “a int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled” isn’t a valid command, am I missing something?
It’s a typo. Should be netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
Thank you!