my phone streams to chromecast better than my laptop? Dell Inspirion Inspiron 3541, windows 8.1

Hello there, welcome to the Community!
 
There are quite a few different things that can explain it or be the cause of the differences, but first I have a quick question.
 
Does your phone and computer use the exact same internet connection (Home Wifi) or is the phone using the cell signals?  

Hello ?,
 
Welcome to the Webroot Community.
 
Edit: Oh, I see David beat me to it:) I will leave this info as a reference.
 
Sorry to hear you're having connection issues.
 
The first thing I would try is to power cycle your modem and router. Simply unplug your router and modem, wait 10 seconds, then plug your router back in first, wait until it has connected to the Internet and then plug in your router. If you have a router and modem in one unit, just unplug that for 10 second and then plug back in, some may have a reset button on front.
 
You may also want to check to be sure your laptop doesn't have too many processes running. You may want to limit the amount of programs that run at startup as sometimes there are processes running that you are not using or do not use.
 
You could also get a dual band router and have your Chromecast on one channel and your laptop on another if the problem occurs when using both.
 
These are just some suggestions that have helped me with connection issues.
 
Please let us know if any of these help or if you still have questions.
We will be happy to help,
 
BD

Same wifi

Is the WiFi router in the same room as the laptop?

The router is upstairs above the room where both the lappy and the chromecast are.
I have a dual band router, how do I tell which band a device is using?

I will let ? cover the dual band questions, but I do have one more quick question of my own: have you tried moving the laptop to different locations in the room it is in now, or taken it up to the location of the router to see if that makes a difference?
 
I know my router is in a different room, and while usually having it directly above works fine, there can still be areas of weaker signal.  A signal that is a bit weak COULD cause it, especially if the phone and laptop are on the same channel as BurnDaddy noted.

Hello ?
 
With a dual band router your two separate channels, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, will show as two separate wireless network connections when logging into Wi-Fi. You would have set these connections up in your router settings when you first setup your router. They will have two different logins with different passwords (if set up that way) You could setup the 2.4GHz channel for the Chromecast (B/G/N) and the 5 GHz for the laptop (N only - if supported). Then any demand from the laptop won't interfere with the Chromecast. You can give devices priority when it comes to bandwidth too. Accessing these setting vary by router and I recommend that you don't go changing settings unless you're sure what they are, and what they do.
 
I have to say that I have no experience using Chromcast but did find this link for troubleshooting common Chromecast issues, including poor signal and how to check your signal strength from within Chromecast. I would also add that I don't know the speed of your internet connection which could also be causing problems. I'm also pretty sure your phone doesn't place as much demand on your network as your laptop does, so that's also worth noting.
 
If your signal is poor in the room you're in (your phone and laptop should both show the little bars indicating strength) Then maybe consider a Wi-Fi extender/booster.
 
Again these are just some thoughts, I welcome others who may have anything to add. ;)
 
Hope this info helps,
 
BD
 
 
 

Thanks for the info. I look thru it and see if I can figure it out.
 
Thanks again.