Wi-Fi Archives - Page 4 of 9 - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Will it cost a lot to fix the WiFi on my laptop?

Posted on September 2, 2023

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Fred: I have a 2 year old Lenovo laptop. It was working fine till yesterday evening but now the Wi-Fi won’t work.

I thought it might be a setting, but the Wi-Fi adapter isn’t even showing up in the Device Manager under Windows 11.

Since it won’t work with Windows, I tried booting into Linux Mint (I have a dual-boot setup). Mint won’t recognize the Wi-Fi adapter either so I’m thinking it must be a hardware problem.

Can this be fixed without costing me an arm and a leg? [Read more…]

Q&A: How’s my daughter getting on Facebook with her phone shut off?

Posted on September 2, 2023

Question from Deidra: I have grounded my 13 year old daughter for a month for getting into some pretty serious trouble at school.

Part of her “grounding” is a total ban on cell phone and Internet use of any kind.

To enforce that, I’ve had her iPhone shut off and I’ve also turned off the Wi-Fi on our router.

The problem is she’s still finding a way to get on Facebook and talk to her friends because I can see her “liking” stuff and leaving comments. How is that possible? [Read more…]

Q&A: Is there a surcharge for using WiFi instead of cellular data?

Posted on April 29, 2023

Question from Debby: A couple of months ago I bought my first smartphone.

I absolutely love it, but I got a huge bill yesterday because they said I went over my monthly data allotment by several gigabytes.

I do watch a lot of videos every day, but I didn’t realize it would cause me to be charged extra.

My daughter said I need to use Wi-Fi instead of cellular data but I don’t want to get hit with a big bill for that too. She said using Wi-Fi is free, but I want to be sure since I can’t afford another huge bill.

So will I be charged extra if I use Wi-Fi to watch my videos? [Read more…]

This is why you need a password on your WiFi network

Posted on April 21, 2023

I’m often asked if it’s really necessary to put a password on a Wi-Fi connection instead of just leaving it as an open network.

The reason they usually give is they want to make it easy for their guests to use their Wi-Fi during their visits.

I receive some variation of that question at least a couple of times every week, and my answer is always the same… [Read more…]

How to quickly retrieve a forgotten WiFi password from your Windows PC

Posted on October 31, 2022

I receive dozens of questions every week from readers of the “Tech Q&A” section of this blog, and a question I get fairly often is “How do I retrieve my forgotten WiFi password?“.

It’s very easy to forget your WiFi password (aka Network Security Key) if your devices store it and log you into the network automatically.

Some people go months, or even years without typing in their WiFi password, only to discover they can no longer remember it when it comes time to connect a new computer or mobile device to the network.

If you’ve forgotten the password to your own WiFi network, I strongly recommend that you retrieve it from your PC and write it down for future reference.

Luckily, that’s very easy to do as long as your Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 PC is currently logged into the network. Here’s how: [Read more…]