Sometimes it’s just down to having one of those days when everything seems against you, but usually, there are reasons why your computer is dropping connection.

As stated above, I recommend doing a little bit of detective work and troubleshooting on your own before you contact your ISP for help.

It might be something as simple as an extra device interfering with signal strength or someone tripping over your Ethernet cable outside. So, save some money by following my tips and trying to fix the problem yourself first.

My Internet Keeps Disconnecting Every Few Minutes (Solved)

Your Internet could be disconnecting every few minutes because of one of the following reasons:

1- Your Wi-Fi Router is Outdated

It’s not always the router’s problem, but if you experience frequent disconnections, it might be time for an upgrade. I would advise you to check out what other people are saying about their experiences with your current model.

This can also happen due to either faulty wiring or an old router. One of the best things you can do is upgrade your router’s firmware/software.

I had this issue myself with two different routers – my ISP tried fixing it for me several times using their own tools and website interface but to no avail. 

Finally, I deleted all custom configuration from both routers and reset them back to factory defaults (followed by reconfiguration). This fixed my problem!

The router is a great piece of equipment that should last at least a couple of years before needing an upgrade or replacement. 

My network kept disconnecting every few minutes on several occasions, before I realized that it was my outdated router making all those problems.

If you think your router might need a firmware upgrade, check its manufacturer’s website for more information or contact your ISP if nothing is provided (or available).

On the other hand, if most reviews suggest that the router “lags” and has constant problems with dropping connections, you should upgrade to a more reliable one like the TP-Link AX6600 WiFi 6 Router.

2- Your Wi-Fi Router is Too Far From Your Computer

This was the problem at my old place. My router was located in one corner of my floor and I always had to sit right next to it for a strong connection, sometimes even taking out the Ethernet wire and plugging it back later on.

I decided to make some changes; we rearranged our furniture and moved the router directly under the ceiling lamp, about 20 feet away from my computer. 

I started using Wi-Fi immediately after that, without any problems whatsoever.

It might also happen due to interference caused by other appliances operating at 2.4 GHz frequency, more on that later. But most likely your router’s location will be what makes your connection unstable.

So, if you’re trying to connect from a different room, try moving your router there or vise versa.

You may have a similar problem with other devices connected to your home network too. Try going into each device’s configuration page and see if you can find anything about its power level or signal strength (in Wi-Fi connection details, or something similar). 

If they are all pretty much the same, then the problem is probably coming from your router’s location.

The best solution in this case would be to get a Tri Band Gigabit Wi-Fi router, it’s perfect for larger homes, as it maximizes coverage, while enabling more devices to connect simultaneously with less lag; This is by far one of the best investments I’ve made in terms of connectivity and piece of mind!

3- Your Cables Are Unreliable

If you are using cables for connections, be sure to check the cable’s condition.

The problem might also be coming from your ports and wiring inside your computer or laptop, so it would be a good idea to test different devices and connect them to your network one at a time.

If this solves your problems with connection dropouts, you will need to repair the Ethernet port on your current device (laptop or desktop) or buy a new one.

If not, the issue is not with the laptop or desktop!

Having a good Ethernet cable might solve the problem too. Try using a different cable to connect your device and see if it makes a difference.

The cable connection from outside your home could be faulty due to sun exposure, heavy rain or snow, animals chewing through it somewhere along the way, or someone tripping over it outside.

If this is the case you will need to replace your cable or call your ISP for help with troubleshooting.

4- Physical Objects or Electronic Devices are Interfering With Your Network

Change the layout of your home somewhat so that there are no obstacles between your modem and router (the shorter the distance, the better). Move furniture around if needed!

The disconnection issue could be due to something as simple as you inadvertently blocking one end of your wireless connection with a couch — just move it!

You might also notice some other devices in your house interfering with signal strength; try moving them away.

Microwaves are notorious for this sort of interference (just like other electronic devices), so move them away from routers and hubs.

The same goes for cordless phones, a few of them close to each other could cause a very unstable connection.

And finally, try turning off any electronic devices near your computer or router and see if the problem disappears – especially devices that use Wi-Fi connections! 

If this solves the issue, you can turn them on one at a time until you find out which one was causing the problem to begin with. 

Once you do, keep that specific device turned off or move it as far away from your router as possible to prevent your Internet from disconnecting every few minutes.

5- The Problem May be With Your ISP

You should check your ISP’s connection speed and make sure it’s the same as what you are paying for. If not, you might need to upgrade or switch to a different package that suits your needs better.

In some cases you might get too much bandwidth at one end of your connection (downloading) but not enough at the other end (uploading). Or vice versa… solve the problem by changing the package you subscribe to.

At the same time, your ISP may be having problems with its servers or routers that cause a significant decrease in signal strength and/or stability.

In this case you will need to contact your Internet service provider for assistance. They should be able to help you out!

A slowdown might be caused by various factors like heavy usage in the area around you, which would mean that your ISP is prioritizing connections to certain sites or services over others; Which could then affect yours if they find out that your IP address has been blacklisted (which can happen for different reasons). 

Another reason might be that there is simply not enough capacity in the section of their servers which connects you to the Internet for all users as a whole. 

In this case, you should phone your ISP to have them solve the issue.

6- Your DNS Server is Not Responding

If you are using an ISP’s DNS server, it might not be responding. Just like other similar services, DNS servers could also go down from time to time without any notice until they fix whatever problem is behind the scenes.

In this case try changing your DNS server address and see if that helps anything.

You can flush your DNS on Windows by doing the following:

1. Go to your search bar and type Command Prompt, then press Enter
2. Now, type ipconfig /flushdns then press Enter.
3. Next, type ipconfig /registerdns then press Enter.
4. Type ipconfig /release then press Enter.
5. Type ipconfig /renew then press Enter.
6. Type netsh winsock reset then press Enter.
7. As a last step you have to restart your PC.

7- Your Network is Congested

Your network might be experiencing a technical problem, or it may simply be overloaded at peak usage time.

If the latter is the case, you might want to limit bandwidth usage for everyone in your household using Quality of Service (QoS) settings, so that everyone gets at least some bandwidth even when traffic peaks occur.

The same thing happened to me when my parents came over to visit and we both used our laptops on the same network, my downloads slowed down to a crawling halt as my dad was watching Facebook videos.

Just ask whoever is using your network to reduce the video quality on their streaming service, such as YouTube, or have them reduce the data usage in their web browser.

If you have a router that gives individual control over each device, then you can also limit them from the source or from the router itself.

This may not be an issue if this was a temporary thing, but if you’re always quarreling over bandwidth with you roommates or siblings for example, the best option would be to set QoS limits from the router.

This is the router I use and setting up QoS only takes a minute if you follow these steps:

1. Connect the Ethernet cable to your laptop or desktop’s Ethernet ports and access the router interface.
2. Open your Chrome browser and type in http://tplinkwifi.net an alternative would be http://192.168.0.1
3. Once the page loads, input the word “user” in both the username and the password field.
4. Go to the QoS (Quality of Service) Settings on your router.
5. Finally, Enable the QoS checkbox

8- Security Software or Firewall Might be Blocking Your Internet Connection

If your Internet is not working, it may be a problem with your security software or firewall settings.

To solve this problem you should disable the security software and firewall temporarily to see if that solves your Internet connectivity issues.

If it does, then something with the security software or firewall settings has been disabled and you will need to reconfigure them.

At times, security programs can prevent your Internet from working properly — especially wireless routers, because they recognize these devices as potential hacking tools.

If this happens, try disabling one of the antivirus scans and disconnecting any other external hard drives or flash drives that are currently plugged into your computer.

9- A Virus Might be Affecting Your Connection

This problem might also occur because of a virus – make sure you update your antivirus software, run a full scan on your computer and remove any viruses it finds.

Take care when downloading files. Free sites are often used to spread malware or trojans that can affect your Internet speed or connectivity.

To protect yourself against them: always keep an up-to-date antivirus software activated even if you don’t use it; they often include real-time protection which can automatically block downloads containing known viruses.

Be cautious about the files you download and make sure you check them for viruses before opening them; many viruses are as simple as scripts or text files , so if your antivirus software tells you a file is not safe, listen to it!

10- Your Computer is Low on Resources

Your computer might be low on either memory (RAM), processor power (CPU), or bandwidth, which could cause significant decrease in speed and performance.

It is possible that your Internet connection has been made to halt and the only reason it is not visible to you.

The system could be using all available resources to run background tasks or services which would make it impossible to communicate through your Internet connection.

▪️ Low Memory

Check if your computer is low on memory by going to the “Task manager”:

• Click on CTRL + ALT + DEL simultaneously
• Then click on Task Manager
• Go to the Performance tab
• Now, simply verify your CPU and Memory usage by looking at the used percentage

If you have less than 80% of your system RAM available, you might need to free some of it up by closing some of the programs that are running in the background and try again once you have freed more memory.

If your internet is not working after freeing up enough memory, go ahead and close a few more unnecessary programs.

▪️ Low CPU Capacity

When your computer is low on CPU resources it will also have problems communicating with the outside world, just like it happens with low memory.

You can check out your CPU usage by going again to Task Manager, then Performance

▪️ Check Your Network Usage

You can similarly verify your network usage by going into your Task Manager on Windows, then Performance, and Network, or if you’re connected using Ethernet look at the Ethernet chart.

By proceeding with the following steps you will be able to understand the root of your Internet connectivity issues.

11- Your VPN is Not Letting You Connect to the Internet

If you are in a restrictive network environment, your Internet might be actually working in the background but for some reason your VPN is not letting you connect to it.

Disabling the antivirus might also solve this problem, but if it doesn’t then there’s something else preventing you from connecting.

VPN blocking has become common practice in various networks over the world and using VPN services that can circumvent such restrictions can help you unblock your connection.

You might need to contact your IT department or network administrator to ask them for more information on why exactly you are being blocked — they may be aware of it already. 

However, sometimes users could get their IP address blacklisted by mistake because of an innocent user getting his computer hacked, even though he was following security best practices.

12- Your Computer’s Drivers Could be Out of Date

You might simply be experiencing a problem with an outdated driver for your Wi-Fi card or network card.

You can check all of your drivers by using the built-in Device Manager in Windows.

First, go to Control panel and open Device Manager

Now, simply verify your device’s status by checking if it has a yellow exclamation mark or red X .

If there is one, right click on it, then click on update driver software. Then select “Search automatically for updated driver software.”

You might need administrator privileges in order to force an update on some devices.

13- Your Cloud Storage Software May be Syncing Data

If you’re using Google Drive or Dropbox to sync files online, check out what settings you have enabled.

If you’re using Google Drive  you might need to check the following:   

1. Go to Google Drive
2. Then open Preferences
3. Now go to Network settings
4. Set the download and upload limits to 100 kb/s

This will help you avoid using too much bandwidth.

You can reset the limits by activating the Don’t limit option.

Just to be on the safe side, make sure that syncing is completely turned off for all drives if you don’t need it.

Dropbox does not automatically start syncing files when your computer boots up by default, but you may change this in the settings if it’s something you’d like to do.

You should also try to limit how much bandwidth Dropbox is allowed to use while the computer is on and idle, or disable that option entirely if you’re tired of seeing a Dropbox icon in your taskbar. 

This will disable background activity and keep Dropbox from trying to sync with other computers and devices while your laptop/desktop sits idle.

Bottom Line on Why Your Internet Keeps Disconnecting Every Few Minutes

When your Internet keeps disconnecting it’s usually due to one of the following reasons:

1. Your Wi-Fi Router is Outdated
2. Your Wi-Fi Router is Too Far From Your Computer
3. Your Cables Are Unreliable
4. Physical Objects or Electronic Devices are Interfering With Your Network
5. The Problem May be With Your ISP
6. Your DNS Server is Not Responding
7. Your Network is Congested
8. Security Software or Firewall Might be Blocking Your Internet Connection
9. A Virus Might be Affecting Your Connection
10. Your Computer is Low on Resources
11. Your VPN is Not Letting You Connect to the Internet
12. Your Computer’s Drivers Could be Out of Date
13. Your Cloud Storage Software May be Syncing Data

As you can see, most connection problems are fairly easy to diagnose and fix if you know what they are.

I hope this article helped you get back online and enjoy a stable internet connection.