Wi-Fi Works on Phone But Not Laptop — How to Fix It

When your phone connects to Wi-Fi without any issues but your laptop does not, you can rule out the router and ISP immediately. The problem lives entirely on the laptop. Here is a logical order to check things.

Step 1: Forget the Network and Reconnect

Sometimes a saved network profile becomes corrupted. On Windows, click the Wi-Fi icon in the taskbar, right-click your network name, and choose Forget. Then reconnect by clicking the network and entering the password fresh.

Step 2: Flush DNS and Reset the IP

Open Command Prompt as administrator and run:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /renew

If the renew command hangs, your laptop is not getting a proper IP address from the router — continue to step 3.

Step 3: Check for IP Address Conflicts

Two devices can sometimes get assigned the same IP address, causing one of them to lose internet. In Command Prompt type ipconfig and look at the IPv4 Address under your Wi-Fi adapter. It should start with 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x. If it shows 169.254.x.x, your laptop did not receive a valid IP from the router.

Try setting a manual IP: go to your Wi-Fi adapter’s TCP/IPv4 properties and enter an unused IP in the same subnet as your router (for example, 192.168.1.200 if your router is at 192.168.1.1), with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 and the router address as the gateway.

Step 4: Update or Reinstall the Wi-Fi Driver

1. Press Win + X and choose Device Manager.
2. Expand Network adapters.
3. Right-click your Wi-Fi adapter and choose Update driver.
4. If updating does not help, right-click again and choose Uninstall device. Restart the laptop — Windows will reinstall the driver automatically.

Step 5: Reset the Network Stack

In an administrator Command Prompt:

netsh int ip reset
netsh winsock reset

Restart the laptop after running both commands. This is surprisingly effective when nothing else has worked. Still no luck? Ask us — we can walk through more advanced diagnostics with you.