Router: ASUS RT-AC68R
Adapter: ASUS USB-N66
Computer: Windows 8.1.1 Desktop
Frequency: 5GHz
Control Channel: 48 or lower
This problem starting occurring yesterday. In Windows Explorer, when I navigate to the Network portion and hit refresh to discover other computers/devices on my network with shared drives, my computer begins to hang. The devices rarely show. Internet Explorer becomes extremely slow. The System service (NTKernel.dll or something of the sort) begins to use the CPU resources, and the whole system slows down. This continues until I either disable my wireless adapter and re-enable it, or change the wireless channel on my router to 149 or higher.
Prior to this, my wireless connection has been stable for a few days. I am able to get full internet speeds on all of my wireless devices, including the subject computer, and the data throughput of the network is a constant 20MB/s (160Mbps) through the air.
The reason why I am concerned is because my data throughput on the lower 5GHz channels (48 or lower) is higher at 23MB/s to 27MB/s (184Mbps to 216Mbps).
I've searched my system for viruses, and malware. Nothing was installed recently. Spybot, Adaware, Symantec, CCleaner all do not find anything wrong with my computer. The fact that reconnecting to the network, or changing the wireless channel would not make it plausible for a malware or virus to be doing this.
I couldn't really find much information on this via Google. Some people have said that changing their adapter fixed the problem.
Could my USB adapter have become faulty all of a sudden?
Adapter: ASUS USB-N66
Computer: Windows 8.1.1 Desktop
Frequency: 5GHz
Control Channel: 48 or lower
This problem starting occurring yesterday. In Windows Explorer, when I navigate to the Network portion and hit refresh to discover other computers/devices on my network with shared drives, my computer begins to hang. The devices rarely show. Internet Explorer becomes extremely slow. The System service (NTKernel.dll or something of the sort) begins to use the CPU resources, and the whole system slows down. This continues until I either disable my wireless adapter and re-enable it, or change the wireless channel on my router to 149 or higher.
Prior to this, my wireless connection has been stable for a few days. I am able to get full internet speeds on all of my wireless devices, including the subject computer, and the data throughput of the network is a constant 20MB/s (160Mbps) through the air.
The reason why I am concerned is because my data throughput on the lower 5GHz channels (48 or lower) is higher at 23MB/s to 27MB/s (184Mbps to 216Mbps).
I've searched my system for viruses, and malware. Nothing was installed recently. Spybot, Adaware, Symantec, CCleaner all do not find anything wrong with my computer. The fact that reconnecting to the network, or changing the wireless channel would not make it plausible for a malware or virus to be doing this.
I couldn't really find much information on this via Google. Some people have said that changing their adapter fixed the problem.
Could my USB adapter have become faulty all of a sudden?