I've got an OPi Zero v1.1 for a home project, It was supposed to be something very simple, connect the board to wifi, make a web app for external control and switch a power relay, I did finished it and everything was working fine but I had sudden disconnections and one day just didn't wanted to reconnect, I've read before about how this board has an horrible wifi chip and trying to avoid further headaches I went and bought an USB WiFi dongle TP-LINK_TL-WN725N, I got it today and connected it to the board using its 13 pin header, then I powered it on via micro usb and worked right out the box, no need for extra config, to finish it off I rewired it to this little box where I have it tucked away aaaand didn't work...
After testing why I found that the wifi would work only on the microusb power with my laptop, inside the box where it was working before I have this AC/DC 5v 1A module which power the OPi through 5v pin of the expansion header and relay (1 channel model), whenever I tried using the converter in the box the wifi didn't work, looked like it didn't even power since there was no led activity of the dongle, but the board itself was powered and booted correctly, or at least that is what I believe because the board led would behave the same as when it would boot and connect to wifi.
In short, when I power it via microusb usb wifi works, when I use the 5v 1A converter mentioned above it doesn't, and for a last test I disconnected the relay from the circuit to feed just the OPi but wifi still wouldn't work, then I read this answer about usb power, if right it would mean that my laptop isn't supplying more than the ac/dc module, or is it wrong?, also I have video output and onboard wifi disabled, I really don't know what I'm missing here.