The problem is my Wireless internet connectivity keeps randomly dropping and staying disconnected with both my pc and my wife's whenever we are joined to a Windows Homegroup " locally." We're stuck living in a hotel, ( long story). When the homegroup doesn't exist ( aka the physical ethernet ports on both machines are disabled), internet runs like a champ. I've ensured when created the Homegroup we're not going through the Public hotel's wireless internet.
We'll say my PC is PC 1, and wife's is PC 2. Both PC's use the same model of wireless usb ethernet card ( netgear a6100) and both use the same speed and length of usb extension cord to maximize signal strength. The only problem is being able to have wireless internet AND being connected to a Windows Homegroup to share files at the same time. Connecting the wireless cards straight to each PC's usb ports matters not. I've confirmed that.
Both PC's have the same version of Windows 10 and 1 year old hardware. Everything else works like a champ.
Also the problem remains regardless of which PC that creates the Homegroup and regardless of reboots.
The following things have already been done: 1. Ensured the physical ethernet ports are set to static ip address and ensured the correct DNS and DEFAULT GATEWAY are both set correctly and the same on both machines. I would double check these network settings have not changed on both PC's even after the wireless internet stops working through "Ipconfig /all", and yes I have tried flushing dns, ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew for kicks. Same problem is still there. 2. Ensured each PC can 100% successfully PING each other. 3. Successfully creating from either PC the Homegroup and joining it from the other is always easy and works every time. The Homegroup never disconnects. 4. Ensured in group policy settings " gpedit.msc" that the physical ethernet lan connection on both machines by default always is set to " Private" as Homegroup's instructions require this. Also ensure the Wireless ethernet's connections on both machiens are always set by default to " Public" as required. Finally ensured that both machine's have it enabled to " never allow the User to change the Network Location " to or from Public and Private to ensure wireless remains Public and physical ethernet remains Private through those Group Policy settings. 5. The Home group functions the same, perfectly, regardless if I use a simple crossover ethernet cable from PC1 to PC2 OR connection through our netgear Nighthaw 7500v2 router through cat 6 ethernet, but the same problem with the wireless internet randomly failing and STAYING in the failing state ( although when left clicking on the Wireless symbol on the taskbar, it still shows all the normal wireless connections we can connect to with the main one still connected with internet. 6. Ensured the Wireless adapter's networking information on both PC's( including ip address) is still the same within reason ( obviously I have no control over it being DHCP since it's hotel wifi-based) with it being a normal Class C private address ( beginning with 192.168 as 99% of them normally do. and valid.
Something in my gut tells me this is a simple problem to fix and there is something simple I am missing, but I can't for the life of me figure it out.
You can clear all your settings on the networkcards, restart pc 1 and shutdown pc 2. Put PC1 in an new Workgroup and Homegroup (create them). And reboot pc1. Then reboot pc2 and give it the same workgroup, reboot and then join it to the same homegroup.
More secure, buy and simple router with an ethernet WAN port. And an Wifi bridge adapter. Connect the bridge adapter to pc1 and configure it to connect to the wifi needed. And confirm you get an IP adress and can access the internet. Then connect the bridge to the WAN port on your router. Configure your router, and wifi if needed with an strong password!!! And connect pc1 and pc2 wired or wirelessly to your new router. Disable homegroups and join your computers to the same workgroup. And make an shared folder for sharing files on both computer or share folders however you wich.
Don't set your ip address as static locally on either of your machines. Configuring static addressing should be performed from the DHCP server-side only. If you are using the hotels wifi then you are using their DHCP and just because you set yours to be 'static' that doesn't mean it is actually static as far as the DHCP server is concerned, you are still dynamic; you're computer will just only accept the specific ip address that you predefine. So when ever the ip address needs to re-lease, their is a high liklihood that you will get the same ip address that you were asigned earlier; but that is not gurenteed. If there happens to be an instance where the DHCP server does not give you the ip address that your computer will only accept then you will loose connection / cause cross talk with the other system that has the ip address that was assigned to it (which is what your computer is telling the network that it is). I.E two different mac address saying they are both 192.168.x.y
Your issue is prabably due to the fact that on the hotels wifi they prabably block the port at routine intervals that the windows home group uses to communicate.
When you just use the ethernet cable to each computer you are not using IP addressing nor are you using DHCP. The mac address from your computer is talking to the mac address of your wifes computer. This is a mesh network. Any configuration should work this way without issue; which you have said yourself works just fine. The issue being wireless.
I already have a netgear r7500v2. The router isn't the issue regardless. As I stated, this problem persists be it connection through my router for the file sharing situation, or just from PC1 crossover cable to PC2 and Homegroup or trying just through " network" folder in Windows explorer and it asks for Windows credentials.
I know my pc will only accept the specific address assigned. I already knew that if I'm using the hotel's wifi then our PC's are using DHCP to receive ip addresses. I'm not a complete networking noob here.
As I stated before, when I lose internet connection while Homegroup is successfully running with both machines, with " ipconfig /all" in cmd, I confirm ALL ip address are still the same ( which confirms regardless I"m still withing the internet-connection-serving-router's ip address LEASE time that I am still within it. Obviously when that lease time expires, granted that there is one more variable involved usually, the PC's will receive new class C ip addresses.)
"When you just use ethernet cable to each PC you are not using IP addressing". Since WHEN? If you can PING back and forth between PC's, obviously IP address is involved. This is networking common sense. If you can't PING a pc, then either you typed the ip address wrong, or that ip address you are trying to PING no longer belongs to that destination pc.
" Your issue is probably that the hotel's wifi blocks the port at routine intervals that windos home group uses to communicate"
How is that possible if I'm setting STATIC ip addresses witht he physical connections, and ensuring they both ethernet connections on BOTH pc's are PRIVATE ( NOT public as the hotel wifi's connection requires that it is public to work)?.
Also, and I apologize for forgetting to mention this, when using my router as the physical connection-Homegroup ( medium), it is set to 192.168.1.3 as the DNS and gateway). The hotel's router the provides internet is set to 192.168.1.1 ( it's a r8000 netgear nighthaw. Mine is the r7500v2.
Thank you much for your suggestions. I added them to my troubleshooting notes. For the record though, I figured out that the " metric" setting of each physical ethernet adapter was , In Windows' eyes, over prioritizing the bandwidth that Windows allocated to the the physical ethernet connections on each pc. I had to manually set the metric of the wireless ethernet cards to something like " 5". This seems to have solve the problem. I've now been able to successfully transfers tons of files between each pc using either pc to do so.
As far as the file sharing/Homegroup is concerned, I AM on a separate network. That was the entire point of this request for help. I'm sharing files on a physical connection with a completely different ip address, subnet mask, etc versus the DHCP involved wireless internet at my hotel using wireless ethernet cards for my and my wife's desktops. (facepalm).