WiFi sharing and frequent connection drops on the connected devices

[tomasz86]

I am writing this in the Windows 10 forum, although I have a feeling that this issue is related to all Windows versions that have Internet Connection Sharing.

I have been trying to set up a desktop PC as a WiFi router. The motherboard is Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI which has both wired Realtek RTL8168 and wireless Intel AC 7260 integrated. The cable modem is connected with a standard ethernet cable to the Realtek adapter, and the connection is then shared using the Intel AC 7260 adapter.

In order to share the connection I simply use the following command (with my own ssid and key values).

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=ssidOfUrChoice key=keyOfUrChoice
netsh wlan start hostednetwork

In the beginning, everything seems to work fine. I am able to connect to the network with other devices and use the Internet from them. The problem is that the connection suddenly drops every now and then (at least once or twice every hour). The PC itself stays connected to the Internet, but the other devices suddenly disconnect, and then re-connect after a few seconds. The cycle then repeats itself indefinitely.

I have been trying to solve the problem but I am not really into networking and have no knowledge about how to troubleshoot such issues. I have tried to use both DHCP and assigning static IP addresses, but it made no difference (except for a faster reconnection to the network with the static IPs). In addition, the PC itself was used before to connect to the WiFi through an external router using its Intel wireless adapter, and there were no connection drops there. The connection drops happen even if the devices are located very close to the PC, where the WiFi signal is very strong. I have also disabled the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" options for both network adapters in the Device Manager.

Could anyone help me in troubleshooting this problem?

Edited February 1, 2018 by tomasz86