Can phone drops cause occasional hardware glitches to Hotspot out or cell data in?

[Madd62]

Streaming to an older large TV via a PC to TV HDMI cable using phone tethering / hotspot.

Last two weeks I now get an occasional but regular sudden signal loss to my pc/TV, every 30 - 60 minutes roughly.

I have dropped my heavy phone a few times recently from no more than 2 - 3 feet.

It's well protected with tempered glass and a Spigen case, but it's heavy at 220 gms and it can make a loud thud on light carpet over wood, or on hard flooring, so I'm wondering if internal shocks could displace something.

 

[B. Diddy]

Could it possibly be a throttling thing? Do you have unlimited high speed tethering, or is there a monthly limit before it gets throttled?

 

[Madd62]

Thanks. No I have full tethering on a 160 gb plan for 4 years.

I have considered other possibilities, like a local network problem or construction but they don't apply for when using my phone screen only; plus I do also have an old laptop tethered for pc stuff some of the time, and that also loses the network.

It may be something else, but it would be good to know if it's just my old Poco. I have tried switching between 4G and 5G in Settings but same thing.

Oddly this model has only 2 5G bands, N77 and N78 iirc, but it has always worked well.

 

[B. Diddy]

Any new wireless devices in the house that might be interfering with whatever wi-fi band/channel that the tethering is using?

 

[Madd62]

I don't think so.

I'm the sole remaining occupant of the building my flat is in. The owners have a router running since some renovation started at least 18 months ago that I've never logged in to, so that has never been a factor. It's showing as a strong but locked network.

I'll hope this stops happening. It may be external.

Perhaps coincidentally a few heavy thuds from drops made me wonder if something happened to the phones motherboard.

I also stupidly realised I could put my high data sim in to my secondary single sim Moto E6 for a few hours in the evening to use it's Hotspot and see if the lost connection recurs then.