Background
Lost your internet connection and don’t want to call your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? There are a number of ways you can attempt to do a quick fix which works in about 80% of the cases. Using this blog may get you back on the ‘air’ within minutes. So next time you lose your internet try the following 3 steps.
(1) Lights
First thing is to check is the router - are the power and connection lights all OK? Here we are checking to see if the modem is connected to the internet. As an analogy think of the lights as the sound you hear when you pick up your telephone – a dial tone means you have a connection.
(2) Power Cycle
In simple terms, to power cycle a device means to turn it off and turn it back on again. For example, the user manual of a router may ask you to power cycle the router if it stops responding. This may mean switching the power to OFF and then ON again or may require physically unplugging the device and then plugging it back in again. Power cycling is often synonymous with resetting a device. As we all know, computer equipment can be rather finicky at times. A device that was working well a few minutes ago may begin acting strangely or may not be responding at all. Often the low-tech solution of simply turning off the device and turning it back on again will fix the problem. This is because information stored in the device's RAM may have gotten corrupted and caused the device to hang up or stall on a certain instruction. Power cycling the device erases the RAM and allows it to boot up with fresh information. Typically it is a good idea to wait 5 to 10 seconds before turning the device back on to make sure it has chance to fully reset. Of course, if you need to power cycle your computer, you should save any work you currently have open, since it will be erased from the RAM once the system is restarted.
(3) Internet connectivity test
The Internet PING command bounces small ‘packets’ of data off another networked computer to test network communications, and then tells how long the ‘packets’ took to make the round trip. The PING command is one of the most commonly used utilities on the Internet by both people and automated programs for conducting the most basic network test: can your computer reach another computer on the network, and if so how long does it take? The PING command is named after the sonar sounds used for echo-location by submarines and bats; just like in old movies about submarines, sonar probes do sound something like a metallic "ping". To run the test then go to your Windows start button and click on Run. In the run box enter ‘cmd’ and press OK. This will give you a pop-up window; where you can enter the command ‘ping www.google.com’. In this example it will send 4 ‘packets’ of data to Google and await the ‘echo’ response. With a good connection 4 ‘packets’ would be sent to Google, and then echo all 4 of them back. If you don't get an echo, i.e. no packets returned then this will point to a connection failure.
The above 3 steps are simple and effective ways to quickly see if you can get back on the air however, sometimes the above will not help and you may need to call your ISP or failing that calling the PC Doctor. Good luck!