XPS 8930, Nest Camera, WiFi connection

Sorry. I spoke too soon. Lasted one and a half days. Now it's back to square one. You guys have covered all the bases and I appreciate it. I think I'll just wait a while and see if anything else pops up.

Meanwhile, my 7-year-old backup PC with the same version of Windows and the same apps installed just keeps going. No problems there. 

Sorry to hear that...

Did you ever tell us if this is Killer or Qualcomm WiFi? Do you have the latest drivers?  Was there a driver update installed, possibly via Windows Update, that started the problem on the XPS 8930? Have you tried rolling back the driver to the previous version in Device Manager?

If this is Killer WiFi, go to the Intel site (they own Killer now) and see if there's a newer WiFi driver than the one installed now.

Is it only the camera that gets lost or is the PC actually disconnecting from the router?  Do you have another WiFi-enabled device you can test to see if this PC loses that device too?

Click Start>Run and type in: services.msc and click OK. Scroll down and double-click WLAN AutoConfig. Make sure it's Startup type is set to Automatic. Don't change anything else in services.msc, but exit services.msc and reboot.

If the XPS 8930 is going to sleep and you've lost the camera when the PC wakes up, try changing the Deep Sleep Control settings in BIOS setup. Or set the Power plan to Sleep:Never, but set a time to turn off the monitor and the HDDs.

At what frequency are you running WiFi, 2.4 or 5 GHz? If the router and camera are dual band, you might try switching from 2.4, if that's what you're using now, to 5 GHz. Note: The other PC and other WiFi devices would also have to be dual band and be switched to use 5 GHz too.

Could this be something with your router settings? If you turn off the other PC, does the XPS 8930 still lose the connection?  

Is the router giving priority ("QoS") to the other PC so the XPS 8930 is losing the connection when it's inactive? Can you change those settings and give the XPS 8930 a higher priority?

And if all else fails, you might try connecting a USB>WiFi dongle to the XPS 8930 and see if that stays connected. Notes: (1) Get a dual-band WiFi dongle for flexibility. (2) You'll have to disable the internal WiFi card in Device Manager.

Ron,

You have certainly covered everything. Thanks. I'll answer all those questions, so I'm not missing anything. I did do a clean install of Win 10 yesterday and have not had any problem yet. It'll probably blow up a minute after I hit reply.

I'm using Killer. Using the drivers on the Dell site. Keep in mind that I do have a 7 years old PC (my backup) and it can be up 24/7 with the camera feed on and it never drops out. That's why I thought it must be this PC.

The camera is connected to the router via wifi. I open up that web page on my PC (or on mobile) which goes to Google to get the video feed. My original problem was that the camera feed was dropping out and I had to log back into my camera account many times per day only on this PC. For 2 years, after I set up my camera, I never had to log in to Google again for the camera feed. It was always there. All I had to do was click on that web page.

That said. This PC started dropping the camera site and giving me a white screen, which lasted up to 2 minutes. Then everything was OK. WLAN is set to auto. I never used "sleep" and always had that turned off.

My wifi uses both 2.4 or 5 GHz. Both PCs are connected directly to the router (wired).

I've always had problems with this PC from day 1 and have replaced almost everything in it, but this specific problem with the camera is something new.

I'll go back over everything again later today and see if I missed anything you have recommended.

Thanks

I hope the clean install solves the problem...fingers x'd.

Let us know what happens...

Thanks for the information about the Nest Outside Cameras. I had no idea about all that.

Yesterday I did a clean install of Win 10 and used Dell drivers only, instead of updating to the newest drivers. So far, so good. I'll see how it goes over the next few days.

Because you can no longer opt out of windows updates I say you will be back to square one soon.

Its probably the Key Negotiation of Bluetooth (KNOB) Attack. Because this attack affects basically all devices that "speak Bluetooth" Microsofts response to this is to DISABLE Bluetooth on all windows systems that do not have updated drivers for the bluetooth stack. The problem going on here is KNOB as well as multiple vunerabilities of the cams.

I would pound on google about a firmware update or complete refund for the devices because it seems that hackers are getting into your cameras and taking them over making your access a white screen.

My clients switched to wired cameras that use analog video to a box secure behind firewall to avoid this.

These systems are not cheap but they are secure.

When the office of general council got thru with google and the vendor that sold the cameras they were more than willing to refund the entire amount less the fedex shipping of their junk back to them.

The lawmakers on the hill were less than forgiving about the hidden microphones.

@spotteddog  Yes, there are security issues with some of these cameras, but that doesn't explain why one of your PCs always gets video from the camera, but the XPS 8930 doesn't get it all the time from the same camera too.

Somehow the XPS 8930 is losing the WiFi signal, which had been an issue with certain OEM WiFi cards Dell installed in this PC model. So let's hope the clean install takes care of it...

Speedstep,

Thanks for this information. A real eye-opener. Guess I can stop banging my head against the wall and see what happens over the next few days before I decide anything.

Do you believe it? After going through all this, I ran into an article today titled: "Strange bug is causing all your Nest devices to pause when viewing camera feed."

Thanks, Nest people for causing me and all the people who spent time helping me to do hours and hours of troubleshooting, including reinstalling my OS. It was all unnecessary. Google, when are you going to fix this? Are you gone to notify all your Nest customers about what is happening?

@spotteddog  - But how does that jibe with your situation where one PC sees the NEST camera feed uninterrupted, and the other one loses it?

And it seems your XPS 8930 is losing its WiFi connection to the router, not just losing the camera feed...

Long thread, so forgive me if you already mentioned this, but have you ever swapped in a new WiFi card, or disabled the internal card in Device Manager and plugged in a USB>WiFi dongle?

There have been issues with some of the WiFi cards Dell installed in the XPS 8930, and you might have one of them. If your XPS 8930 is still under warranty, Dell may swap the WiFi card for you...

Thanks for the suggestions. No, I haven't swapped out my WiFi card yet, but I'll keep that in mind.

Thanks

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@spotteddog wrote:

Win 10 19043 and Nest Outside Camera

I am not sure exactly where to post this, so I thought I'd start here. To me, this is rather unusual, so none of the troubleshooting steps from Nest apply. It must be either an XPS 8930 or Windows problem.

Here is the Problem:

On the XPS 8930, my camera keeps dropping its WiFi connection and I have to log in several times a day.

Here's what is unusual. I have 2 PCs. One is my XPS 8930 and the other is an older PC. The "other" PC is my backup PC and is running the same version of Windows and all the same software the XPS 8930 is running.

The problem PC is the XPS 8930.

The "other" PC is can run the camera app with no problems whatsoever. I can leave it on 24/7 and the camera never goes down and I never have to log on. But the XPS 8930 drops its connection many times a day and I have to log back in to get the app working again. That's why I think it must be the XPS 8930. I have had this camera for several years with no problems whatsoever until about a month ago. All the troubleshooting from Nest has to do with the wifi connection, etc,  but that is doesn't apply since I have another PC directly beside my XPS 8930. All connections and distances are the same. 

Thanks

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Wouldn't be surprised that it was a Win 10 problem with the WiFi connection...

Glad you got it sorted...