All of a sudden, the wifi on my personal laptop started having no connection most of the time or constantly losing connection when I am downstairs (Router is upstairs), but if I am upstairs in the room w/the router, the connection strength is just fine.

I did not change anything with the router placement or anything on the laptop to cause this. Just started randomly Friday night and has not stopped.

My work laptop still gets signal just fine downstairs. It's just my personal laptop that has the problem.

Think the wireless card is going bad or would this be another issue?

Have you turned it off, then turned it back on? Kinda joking, kinda not.

It's a Dell. I have a new wireless card coming since it was $7 off egay. Coming USPS so it'll be here in 6 months...

Also ordered a USB wifi stick off Amazon that'll be here tomorrow so let's see if it works with that. If so, has to be the card that is going bad. If not, I am out of ideas.

If you have a cellphone, download an app to scan for WiFi signals.
I wouldn't mind betting that you see another signal (from a neighbor) on the same channel as yours.

Move yours to a better channel.
(Or burn down your neighbor's house)

+1 on the Wifi scanning app.

New network card may help but you should ensure it supports 2.4 and not only 5.0 as I would assume 2.4 is the frequency you're getting best in the basement.

If the problem persists you could try a mesh network like the ones below.  You can place nodes throughout your house to create better coverage.

Google
https://www.amazon.com/Google-Nest-WiFi-Router-Generation/dp/B07YMKD6SM

TP Link
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Deco-Whole-Home-System/dp/B06WVCB862/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=mesh+network&qid=1609850045&s=electronics&sr=1-3


There are also power line network adapters but those are so so.

Sounds like it's a computer problem, not a router problem (since one laptop works fine, and the other does not.)

https://www.webnots.com/fix-wifi-connection-issue-in-windows-10/