Why does my laptop have poor wifi performance unless I let it auto connect?

[bingbongbangbung]

I disabled auto connect because it'd cause problems with some software like Steam sometimes when waking up my laptop. In the past few months, I've noticed my laptop getting worse in wi-fi performance to the extent that now my phone is better than it. But literally the other night, I decided to have it auto connect to my wi-fi at home and it's all good. Literally everything else I tried to mitigate the "Can't connect to this network" error in Windows 10 didn't work (I was about to un/reinstall network drivers from device manager). I think the same happens for my phone too but that's a topic for another question, unless y'all wanna address that too.

Updates

1 y

After un/reinstalling network drivers, the wifi no longer has issues

[NewsReader]

Use an Ethernet cable instead. So much better than wifi. You can try turning the router on/off. You can try a factory reset. Just don't forget to back up your data.

[bingbongbangbung]

Except that I'm upstairs and the modem is all the way downstairs

[Anonymous]

It needs software updates? Wifi troubleshoot issue? We’ll never know

[bingbongbangbung]

Lol the troubleshooting tool in Windows almost never works

[bingbongbangbung]

I'm already updated to the latest Windows updates for version 21H2 so nah

[Wise4myage]

Is your lap top really old?

[bingbongbangbung]

It's only 3 years old at this point

[bingbongbangbung]

I have the Acer Nitro 5 AN5-15 54 gaming laptop that launched in mid 2019. General specs are i5 9300H, GTX 1050, UHD 630, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, Windows 10, FHD LED IPS. My wifi network adapter is from Intel while my sound card is either by RealTek or WaveMaxx I don't know.