Wi-Fi issues right after startup

Hey there, fellow forum enthusiasts! I’m dropping by today to chat about a persistent little headache that’s been bugging me for quite some time now.
It involves my Apple laptop, which seems to have this peculiar habit where, every single time I boot up macOS, it refuses to connect to the Wi-Fi right away—instead, I’m stuck sitting there waiting for about a full minute. During that time, the little icon turns orange, just staring back at me blankly, showing absolutely zero available networks until that sixty-second timer finally runs out.
And here’s the kicker: since I upgraded to an SSD, I actually end up waiting longer for the Wi-Fi to find its footing than I do for the entire operating system to finish loading!
What I find truly fascinating, though, is how perfectly normal everything behaves if the computer just goes into standby mode; as soon as it wakes up, it connects instantly, and it’s the exact same story with hibernation—it snaps online in a split second.
Since this has been an ongoing issue for years, I’ve tried just about everything, including reinstalling different versions of the OS—I've gone from Windows 7 to 10 and now I'm on 7 again—but the problem persists regardless. I even went as far as swapping out the Wi-Fi card and replacing my Xfinity router with a brand new one, yet nothing has changed.
It’s just this strange loop where that little orange star icon appears, and then I’m left twiddling my thumbs for a minute before the network finally shows up and decides to connect.
To give you an idea of the setup, the router is sitting just about three feet away from the laptop.

...maybe try setting a static IP for your laptop through the router settings instead

Try using an external Wi-Fi adapter. If the issue disappears, it means your laptop's internal card is likely failing. Wireless technology can be surprisingly unreliable sometimes.

- Eric Alvarez, this thread has been sitting here for ten days already.

- Look, electronics are either working or they aren't. Usually, you're looking at bad solder joints, short circuits, or maybe some crappy capacitors acting up... but with this whole situation where the WiFi card in the laptop eventually starts behaving itself? None of that applies. It’s totally fine.

- That one-minute lag you're seeing while waiting is just the WiFi card trying to shake hands with the router. It has to negotiate the DHCP for an IP address, sort out security protocols (like WPA), pick a channel, set the mode (b, g, n), speed, and all those other settings before it can actually talk to the web and get rid of that yellow warning icon.

- Honestly, if that laptop is usually sitting right next to the router, it would be way faster to just plug in an Ethernet cable.