Something weird keeps happening

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My internet router is pretty reliable and doesn't usually disconnect. But lately whenever I go on to the universal credit (UC) site on my laptop (to check our UC journal) the WiFi disconnects completely.

At first I thought it was just an annoying coincidence but it's literally happened a few times now, after working perfectly when going on any other site then whenever I go to the UC sign in page or even search for it from Google it does the same thing - WiFi disconnects.

So I tried using the WiFi hotspot from my phone. It worked great at first but then as soon as I tried to get the UC site up it suddenly disconnected again.
I would do it on my mobile device but only the laptop automatically has the password and username I use, which I have forgotten.

The UC website is a government website so isn't malicious or anything, and even if it was I didn't think it would cut off the WiFi connection. But a government site isn't risky of malware. All we want to do is to get into our UC account. What gives? It's weirding me out.

Strange. An idea to try and let them know?

Are you on a VPN?

No. I don't think so anyway. It's just weird how getting on to a certain site can make the WiFi and mobile hotspot lose its connection. The government website is a UK government website, and we've been on it before. Just in this last week or so the WiFi signal just disconnects whenever we try to get on to this particular site (universal credit).

I had a problem a little bit like that once, where the wireless part of my router stopped working and the only way I could access the Web was to plug in a cable between the router and my laptop. It worked for everything except the BBC news website and the Thunderbird email client. Some techie friends agreed it was a weird problem and suggested I tried some interventions that I couldn't understand. Then after a good few hours the problem went away all by itself. My techie friends said that they thought the router might have been upgrading its firmware. I still don't understand to this day how such a problem could have happened.

I did manage to get access to the BBC news back before normal service was resumed, by searching for "BBC news UK" and clicking on one of the hits, which got me there, though the URL was a very long one I'd never seen before. My usual bookmarked URL was useless till the problem fixed itself.

Google search says you are not the only one. Most results point to this being a hardware/driver issue on your laptop.

Two things you will want to try before doing anything drastic:

1) Clear your browser's cache.
2) Update the drivers for your network card. (Windows 10 instructions)

My laptop is fairly new (well, had it about 8 months now). And it's Windows 11.
When I go to the UC the WiFi connection icon gets a "no way can you access any internet!" symbol over it, and the light on the router flashes or goes red.