My home network keeps dropping devices randomly. Router shows them connected but they have no internet. What is going on

[ScarletDaemon]

Random devices lose internet connectivity while showing as connected to WiFi. Happens to different devices at different times. Unplugging and replugging the device fixes it. The router dashboard shows them connected and assigned an IP. ISP line tested as fine.

Router is three years old, ISP provided

[Highland Dylan]

The classic symptom of a DHCP lease table filling up or getting corrupted. Your router has a finite number of IP addresses it can hand out and if old leases are not being released properly new connections fail silently

[Leo]

Log into your router admin interface and look at the DHCP client list. Count how many devices are listed including ones that are no longer in your home. Old phones, old laptops, smart home devices from previous setups all hold leases

[Slate Mike]

The classic symptom of a DHCP lease table filling up or getting corrupted. Your router has a finite number of IP addresses it can hand out a

That is one way of looking at it. Nice one

[HiggsField29]

The fix is either shortening the DHCP lease time so old leases expire faster, or manually clearing the lease table and restarting the router, or increasing the DHCP pool size if your router supports it

[Kieron83]

ISP-provided routers are notoriously underpowered for the number of devices in a modern home. Three years old means it was probably designed for 20 to 30 devices and a modern household easily exceeds that

[Slay40]

Check if the router firmware is up to date. ISP routers often have automatic firmware updates that can cause temporary instability, but being on old firmware also causes problems

[WWEPete45]

The intermittent nature affecting different devices at different times is the tell for DHCP exhaustion rather than a specific device problem. A failing device would affect one device consistently

[SašaJelenič]

Assign static IP addresses to your most important devices, smart TV, work laptop, desktop PC, and remove them from the DHCP pool. Reduces the churn on the lease table

[Luca73]

If the ISP router has a bridge mode or you can put it into modem-only mode, adding your own router behind it gives you much better control and usually much better reliability

[Layla81]

Power cycling the router fully, not just the restart button but unplugged for 30 seconds, clears the DHCP table and fixes this temporarily. If it keeps coming back the table is filling up faster than it is expiring