figured out a workaround for my computer turning off the wifi adapter until it's rebooted:
when it's about to do so, the connection sorta starts... flickering? like, one moment it can see all the networks nearby and the next it can't.
as stated previously this is a laptop, so what i do is i just... switch it to airplane mode for a moment. this turns off the wifi adapter in a controlled manner and allows me to turn it back on without having to do a full system reboot.
also if im going to be leaving it on overnight and not for download reasons i can just set it to airplane mode before i sleep and it's all good. maybe plug it into ethernet overnight if i need to do a big download? it does have a port for that
