Doing a 'hard reset' of wifi state without restarting
If I understand correctly, your laptop is prioritizing one Wi-Fi Access Point over another, even though that one is further away. You can change the priority of Access Points by finding the following:

System Preferences ==> Network ==> Advanced

You will see a list of networks your laptop has previously connected to, and you can rearrange the list via drag &amp; drop, with the first item in the list being of the highest priority.

Once you are done, click OK then Apply and restart your Wi-Fi card to get the desired results.