Troubleshoot Your Internet Connection
In this wired day and age, there’s nothing quite as frustrating as finding yourself unwillingly unplugged. What’s worse, with a busted Internet connection, you frequently don’t have much of an idea what’s going on—web pages don’t load, but it’s up to you to figure out why. Networking is tricky business, and there are dozens of complicated things that can go wrong, but a lot of time the root cause is one of a few simple problems. With that in mind, here’s our basic Internet troubleshooting checklist.
Restart Your Router
Most computer users already know this, but it’s so important that it’s worth stating anyway. Before spending any time trying to figure out what the problem is, do a complete power cycle on your router and your modem. Hopefully, that will fix your problem, and you’re done with this guide. If it doesn’t, read on.
(Image I)
If you find yourself routinely having to restart your router, you may be overloading it. In particular, BitTorrent and other programs that open lots and lots of simultaneous connections can overwhelm an old or crappy router. Lowering the maximum number of uploads and downloads in your BitTorrent client might fix the problem—at the expense of some download speed (image I).
Is It Your Wi-Fi?
If you’re trying (and failing) to connect to a Wi-Fi network, whip out your trusty Ethernet cable and jack in. Hopefully, your Internet connection will now work, and you’ll have narrowed down your problem considerably. If this is the case, consider the following possible causes of Wi-Fi failure.
» Can you see other wireless networks?
If you can see other wireless networks but not your own, then the problem is with your router. Consult your user guide for more info on troubleshooting the router itself.
» Is your Wi-Fi adapter enabled?
It sounds silly, but a lot of laptops feature a combination of custom Wi-Fi interface (image J) and a too-clever-for-its-own-good hardware Wi-Fi switch that can make it all too easy to inadvertently turn off your Wi-Fi card. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.
(Image J)
» Is your wireless driver correct?
If you’ve recently reformatted your laptop, and now can no longer connect to Wi-Fi networks, you may be lacking the proper driver for your wireless card. Hit up the laptop manufacturer’s website and look for the motherboard, chipset, and wireless drivers for your model.
If It's Not the Wi-Fi...
Something might be wrong with your router, your Internet connection, or your computer’s settings. Here’s what to look for.
» Is it your network settings?
Open up your network setting panel (Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connection, then right-click Local Area Connection, select IPv4, and click Properties). In your router settings, you can see if your network uses dynamically assigned IPs (most home networks do). If it does, make sure that the “Obtain an IP address automatically” setting is selected in the IPv4 properties.
» Is it your DNS server?
Open a command prompt (Windows key + R, type cmd and hit Enter), then try to ping a known IP address. If you don’t know a working IP address off the top of your head, you can use a working computer to ping a website (for instance, ping Google by entering
ping www.google.com) and it will return an IP address (image K). Now, try to ping that address on the computer that can’t connect. If you get a response by pinging the IP address but not the domain name, the problem may be in your DNS settings. Check them out in your router.
(Image K)
» Is it your broadband provider?
And of course, the problem could always be out of your hands. If nothing else seems to be working, try giving your ISP a call and asking if there’s a problem on its end.
Now, we know this is hardly an exhaustive list, but the steps we’ve described here should catch all the most common problems you might have with your Internet connection. Good luck!
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