Internet connection keeps dropping

[Underwhelmed]

HP ProBook 450 G5 five years old. 8GB RAM and 7.89 usable. 64 bit operating system.
Using Windows 11 Home and Norton Safe Search through Chrome.
Spark modem is about 3-4 years old.

Laptop is used for internet, email, Word.

Web pages are now slow to load or time out and sometimes a message states the internet connection is lost, even when the Internet connection icon says the connection is working.  Turning the laptop internet connection on and off works but sometimes only briefly. No problems with internet on the mobile phone.  I regularly use the clean-up function to remove web site history etc.

Options: a/ pay Spark $100 for a new modem b/ buy Norton's registry cleaner (Norton scan states that there are registry issues but I don't want to pay for their registry cleaner when it's possibly their bloatware that is the problem) or c/ time to replace the laptop?

Thanks. 
PS: Recommendations for alternative to Norton?

[cookee_nz]

After 5 years, I'd recommend a full system recovery back to its original factory state. Back up anything you need to keep and the reboot pressing F11 right after powering on to get the Recovery options.

Alternatively you can try a Windows Refresh, it's similar but quicker and may be enough.

You need to restart in Safe mode to access that. Google Wondows 11 Safe Mode for how to do it.
Don't waste time or money on registry cleaners etc, just go for a clean slate.

Cheers.

[king1]

I would uninstall anything Norton for starters, windows has a more than adequate AV built in nowadays, and Nortons has been found to be the cause of problems for me on more than one occasion... Agree with cookee_nz, registry cleaners are bad news and will just make anything worse. So uninstall any of them...

Have you tried hot spotting the laptop to phone for a bit to see if the internet connection is stable?? these things can be a bit of a process of elimination.

ADWCleaner is a good basic troubleshooting fix for these sorts of issues...
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownl...dwcleaner/

[king1]

Further to that

I think the first thing you need to do, before resorting to drastic or expensive measures, is to test the machine on another internet connection and see if it still does the same thing

In windows 11 there is a network reset option that you can use to reset all network stuff in windows. This is in the settings, Network and Internet, Advanced Network Settings, Network Reset. You WILL need to reconnect to your wifi network after doing this