Laptop causing strange problem with WiFi

[Cosmic47]

Hello, I'm having a really weird problem with a laptop of mine that causes issues with my WiFi whenever I try to go online. It's dual booting Linux Mint 18.2 with Windows 8(which I only keep for a specific program I need) Here's where the issue comes in: I can connect to my WiFi on the laptop just fine, but the second I try to load a website that isn't my browser's home page, everything comes to a standstill. The laptop and all the devices in my home suddenly lose their ability to connect to the internet and stay stuck trying to load pages or videos. This is not an exaggeration, nothing can connect when I try to use the laptop. I've tried disconnecting several devices from WiFi to see if that fixed the issue but it remained. I also checked my laptop and made sure power management was off for the wireless card as suggested from the Easy Linux tips site and that still didn't fix the problem. If I disconnect the laptop from my WiFi network, all the other devices and computers go back to normal within minutes or less.

At first I thought it was my internet since at the time when this started happening my provider was having some issues. I stopped bothering to use the laptop for a while thinking that it might have been a coincidence and that things would go back to normal eventually. However, last night I tried to use it again for the first time in quite a while and, once again, I had the exact same problem occur. I have no idea what could be happening that causes all my devices to lose connection when I try to go online on my laptop but so far I have not found a solution. If anyone can offer me some clues as to what may be wrong and how to fix it, I would appreciate it.

[Joe2Shoe]

I have a "Mint Lock-up" issue on one of my 3 laptops running LM18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit. If I open Firefox browser then go to any website, after seconds/minutes, the laptop will totally lock-up. After 5-10 minutes, the laptops works fine. Quite frustrating.
So, I uninstalled and/or don't use Firefox, I use Chrome & Chromium instead without any lock-ups. Go figure.
I have troubleshooted this issue for 4 months now, and only have lock-ups if using Firefox.
This issue started when I upgraded from LM18.1 to LM18.2, now I have upgraded to LM18.3.
I replaced the RAM with 4GB Crucial and installed a new wifi card, replaced the CMOS RTC battery, etc., same situation.
I will probably do a clean LM18.3 install soon as I am installing a new 1TB HDD on this specific laptop.

[Cosmic47]

That's a frustrating issue to have, but at least you can work around it by using something other than Firefox. I've tried using other browsers but nothing made this particular problem go away. I can't seem to find any information online about what might be causing it either. If it was just the laptop that had connectivity issues, I think I could find a solution on my own, but the fact that it causes ALL my devices to have WiFi issues is just strange and not something I know how to fix. As it stands right now, my laptop is completely useless to me.