My son recently dove headfirst into the world of PC building. After weeks of research, part selection, and careful assembly, his new machine finally powered on — success. At the heart of it sat an ASUS Prime B550M-A WiFi II motherboard, packed with modern features like PCIe 4.0 and Wi-Fi 6.

Everything looked perfect… right up until he launched Brawlhalla.

That’s when reality showed up.

The Symptoms: The Dreaded Red Bar

Despite Windows proudly displaying a full Wi-Fi signal, intense matches triggered something ominous: the in-game network icon repeatedly collapsed into a single, flashing red bar. Lag spikes. Dropped inputs. Lost matches.

One Single Red Bar Internet in Brawlhalla Games
One Single Red Bar Internet in Brawlhalla Games

His immediate conclusion was simple: the router must be the problem.

We are still using an older Netgear Nighthawk R7000 running DD-WRT. Yes, it’s a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) router — not exactly cutting-edge. But the symptoms didn’t quite line up with a straightforward “old router vs. new PC” explanation. Something didn’t add up.

The Troubleshooting Journey: A Lesson in Patience

Instead of swapping hardware blindly, we slowed down and treated the problem like engineers: isolate variables, test one change at a time, and let evidence lead the way.

Attempt 1: Wi-Fi 6 Compatibility

Our first theory was a standards mismatch. Wi-Fi 6 adapters introduce advanced features like Target Wake Time (TWT), which can behave unpredictably when paired with older routers that don’t fully understand those power-saving signals.

So we forced the adapter to behave like a Wi-Fi 5 card:

  • Right-click Start > Device Manager
  • Expand Network adapters
  • Right-click your adapter > Properties > Advanced
  • Set 802.11ax/ac/n Mode to 802.11ac
Device Manager to Change Roaming Aggressiveness to 1
Device Manager to Change Roaming Aggressiveness to 1

The result? Slightly better — but under pressure, the red bar still returned.

Attempt 2: Identifying the Real Culprit

Digging deeper, we confirmed the board used a Realtek Wi-Fi 6 chipset — a name that seasoned gamers often recognize with a sigh. These chips are well-known for latency spikes, aggressive power saving, and a lack of advanced tuning options.

Sure enough, the Advanced tab was missing common gaming features like Packet Coalescing. We did find one useful control and adjusted it:

  • Roaming Aggressiveness set to 1 (Lowest) to prevent constant background scanning

This helped — but it still wasn’t the full solution.

Attempt 3: The USB Dongle Test (The Smoking Gun)

To remove all doubt, we plugged in a cheap USB Wi-Fi dongle and ran the same game.

It was flawless.

No red bars. No spikes. No excuses.

That single test ended the debate. The router was innocent. The problem lived on the motherboard.

The Ultimate Fix: The Registry Double-Whammy

Realtek adapters rely heavily on a power-saving feature called Leisure Power Save (LPS). It’s great for laptops. It’s terrible for real-time games. Worse, there’s no obvious toggle for it in the driver UI.

So we went where Windows hides the sharp tools: the Registry.

  1. Press Win + R, type regedit
  2. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\
    CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
  3. Locate the subfolder (0001, 0002, etc.) where DriverDesc matches your Realtek adapter
  4. Action A: Set LpsEn to 0
  5. Action B: Create a new String Value named LeisurePs and set it to 0
Registry Editor to Disable Realtek Leisure Power Save
Registry Editor to Disable Realtek Leisure Power Save

This “belt and suspenders” approach ensures the adapter never slips back into micro-sleep during gameplay.

Lessons Learned: For Gaming — and for Life

  • New isn’t automatically better. Modern hardware often ships with aggressive power optimizations that quietly sabotage performance.
  • Signal strength ≠ quality. Full bars only mean the signal is strong, not stable. Latency, jitter, and packet loss are what actually matter.
  • Blame carefully. The oldest component in the system isn’t always the problem.
  • Trust controlled experiments. The $10 USB dongle taught us more than hours of guessing ever could.
  • Diagnosis is a life skill. Whether you’re debugging Wi-Fi, fixing a car, or making a career decision, the process is the same: isolate variables, test assumptions, and follow evidence instead of frustration. It’s a valuable lesson for my 13-year-old — and a reminder for me as a longtime DIYer that experience never stops teaching.

Summary Table of the Fix

Problem Symptom The Fix
Power Saving Red bar / lag Registry (LpsEn & LeisurePs = 0)
Background scanning Latency spikes Roaming Aggressiveness = 1
Weak onboard hardware Persistent stutter USB Wi-Fi dongle

And if none of these tweaks work, it’s still not a failure. You can replace the internal card with a rock-solid Intel AX210 ($22 at Amazon), or simply keep using a USB Wi-Fi dongle ($12 at Amazon with Wi-Fi 6) — cheap, reliable, and completely hidden at the back of the PC.