![]() ![]() This is the point where your home network is directly linked to the outside world and the last thing within your home you can manage and diagnose before you get into the territory of things that can only be fixed by your ISP (like weak signal strength on the line coming off the utility pole). Whether your broadband connection is fiber optic, cable, or DSL, the first stop is at the most critical point: the modem. In each section we'll list the immediate steps near the top of the section and then further explain why we're performing each step. In addition to working from the biggest link to the smallest link, each section of the tutorial include a "Short Term Fix" and "Long Term Fix" section focused on what to do right now to fix your problem (potentially only temporarily depending on the severity) and what to do to ensure the problem doesn't return (which might include calling the cable guy out to run line tests or replacing your router). Read on as we work from the largest and most critical components of the network down to the individual devices, offering troubleshooting insight as we go. What we can do, however, is distill the basics of Internet connection troubleshooting down to a simple workflow that can help anyone, no matter how inexperienced they might be, figure out where the weakest link in their home Internet connection is. The best way to find the weakest link is to start from the biggest of the links in the chain and work from there. As much as we'd love to be able to precisely troubleshoot each of your specific network problems (because we do love fixing geeky problems big and small) that's not something we can, alas, do on a reasonable scale. "Help me fix my flaky Internet connection" is, by far and away, the most frequent call for help we get here at How-To Geek as well as the top number one request we get from friends and family. By narrowing things down you know whether to complain to your ISP to fix a problem beyond your control, troubleshoot your own router, tinker at the device level, or otherwise focus your attention. ![]() The purpose of this guide is to help you narrow down exactly what is causing the problem so that you have the ability to monitor it in the future and be proactive in keeping your network running smoothly (and, most importantly, so that every time your Wi-Fi gets flaky you aren't stuck in the reboot-everything-in-the-house loop). In most instances those things fix your problems because you force the device software to reload, dump potential errors in the memory, and get (or give) new network assignments but not because you've really isolated what is wrong with your connection. Related: Understanding Routers, Switches, and Network Hardware Everyone out there with connectivity/Internet issues wants to fix those issues and they often do so by plugging and unplugging things, turning the power to their devices and networking equipment on and off, and so forth. The obvious answer to why you want to do this is to fix your network problems but actually fixing things in a permanent way involves a bit more troubleshooting than the typical plug and unplug routine. ![]()
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