THANK GOD!!!!! I APPRECIATE YOU, @AntS !!! I got distracted doing parent stuff. I was totally going to go through the Samsung Community posts and continue to collect moderator tags to post here until SOMEONE helped us out. I thought it was a new issue, honestly. I used to work tech support for a cellphone company on TOP of having smart phones since they became mainstream (as someone who was born in the 90's, I grew up with all of this technology). I have NEVER experienced an issue like this with any other phone from any other company. However, according to the links I posted above, not only does it appear that this has been happening since 2017 on different phones but there's even an instance on a tablet!
I've also wired circuit boards in a previous job. Either this is caused by faulty wifi chips/cards from one of your distributors, this is a critical software error that's gone unnoticed for a long time (partially due to the push to upgrade at every turn), or this is an intentional software error as part of a convoluted effort to influence people to upgrade without making it obvious that Samsung is causing the defect. After seeing posts from 2017, I was starting to really believe it was, in fact, intentional-- especially after Apple pushed updates to slow their older phones down so that people would upgrade a few years ago. The difference between Apple and Samsung is that Apple is a cult whereas people come to Samsung specifically due to the QUALITY of their products. If you guys need my IMEI or anything, send me a PM~ I'll do anything I can do to assist.
Also, the issue with the J5 in the link below, which was not solved as the text in the hyperlink suggests, was a 2016 model having this problem in 2017, one year after the phone came out. This in and of itself fits the pattern I've experienced with my own WIFI card burning out IMMEDIATELY after the UI 5.1 update, which happened to be pushed out 10 DAYS after my warranty ended, meaning that instead of Samsung giving me a new phone, I was told to upgrade it pay to have the problem fixed myself. This alone being a pattern, much you see with criminals, makes it seem very much intentional. Unfortunately, the one user that DID post about having it fixed was being asked to pay $500~, which is just under the amount I paid for my phone after trading the previous $1k phone in. It's not worth it to repair. I would have to pay to upgrade it again, I refuse to purchase a new phone every year, and I darn sure will not be forced to do it when I was happy with my phone up until the WIFI card died. I would rather get a $100 phone from LG or Motorola is that's the case. At least when THOSE die, it's most likely because the screen cracked or something, and I'll just buy a new one. I would rather spend $100 per year than $500-$1000 per year on a phone. If it has to be replaced that quickly, it's not a quality product in my opinion. My whole family is loyal to Samsung, too, but I'm about to tell my father, who is a chief warrant officer with enough money to just upgrade to the newest thing whenever, that the products aren't worth the price we have to pay for them.
Solved: Samsung J5 2016 Wifi problem - Samsung Community
PS: For reference, I have a Samsung S21 FE 5G. It's happening on the Fold3, Galaxy Tab S, and apparently, the J5 (as I already mentioned). So, it's truly a hardware defect that transcends model, for sure. Also, I was wondering, do they have a habit of trying to update the old phones to function like the new ones? If so, they're probably pushing the hardware past its capabilities.
