Why might my Internet connection randomly stop working?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom here for
askleo.com.
I've got eight things for you to look at to help diagnose why you
might have a flaky Internet connection.
Unfortunately, there are enough things that could be wrong or affecting
your Internet that I can't tell you which one applies to you.
But these are the things that I would look at if it were happening to me.
Number one, or really number zero, is that I'd reboot your router,
pull the plug, let it sit for 30 seconds, plug it back in.
There's a reason so many tech support answers.
Start with reboot the device, unplug it, and plug it back in again.
It's a meme, let's face it.
The fact is that that can reset a lot of things in the device
back to a working state.
Routers tend to be left on all the time, which means that they're accumulating
days, weeks, months of randomness, if you will, as they do their job.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes that can be enough to cause it
to slow down or get confused and just sort of have random behavior.
So that definitely is where I would start you now onto the other issues
that are a little bit less obvious and a little bit harder to deal with.
Number one is router overload.
It's interesting, especially with older routers.
Routers are just computers, like any other computer, to be honest.
There's a cpu inside.
There's an operating system, there's ram.
There's all sorts of stuff.
The bottom line, though, is that the router that you got, maybe 510 years
ago, that's been working fine ever since, might not be as powerful
as a router that you would get today.
That then implies that we're also throwing more things at our Internet connection.
Ten years ago, it was like three computers in my house, and we were done.
Now it's four computers, I think a bunch of IoT devices, a bunch of streaming
services, tvs and Roku's and so forth.
Basically, I've got something like, like 40 devices connected to my Internet.
That means my router has to work harder at providing the Internet connection.
Sometimes that can have an effect of intermittent problems.
So one of the things to look at is basically think about just how much
is your router really working these days.
In that same vein, number two is router overheating.
This happens for a couple of reasons.
One is overwork. Right.
If you have a router and you go to it and touch it, and it just seems super hot.
That can be a problem.
The real scenario, though, that tends to cause this more often
than anything else, is that the router itself requires airflow.
It needs air to be able to flow through and around it in order to keep it cool.
If that's become blocked off, either because of where you happen to put
your router, or because of the things in life like corgifer around here, have
accumulated in front of your router's vents that can cause it to overheat.
So make sure it's got airflow.
Make sure that the vents are clean of whatever might be in the way.
Number three, router bugs.
Like I said, routers are just computers.
Special purpose computers, but computer nonetheless.
They run software.
All software has bugs.
Therefore, you might be running into situations now
that are exposing potential bugs in the router's own software.
That's an easy one to check for not whether or not
it has bugs, but whether or not there's updated firmware for your router.
The way to do that is to go to the router manufacturer's website
and see if there are updates available for your specific model, and then
follow their instructions to basically install that update on on your router.
Number four, too many devices accessing the Internet at once.
I'm good here that I've got 40 devices all connected, but the majority of them
are very short, very quick Internet access kind of devices.
For example, my light switch, my Iot light switch.
The only time it deals with the Internet is when I'm turning something on or off,
or when maybe my Amazon device is trying to determine the state of the switch
to show me whether it's on or off.
On the other hand, if I'm streaming on my pc and I'm
streaming on a couple of tvs, and I'm doing some other heavy downloads
on yet another machine, it is possible that I could overwhelm
my router simply by the sheer amount of data that I'm trying to push through it.
At the same time, that is something that you can at least keep in mind
when you're experiencing problems.
When you're experiencing problems, check the other machines, check what's
going on with your Internet connection, and see if it simply might be a case
of too much data all at once.
Number five, Wi Fi signal strength and interference.
So far, I've been talking specifically about your router and what
it does connected to your Internet.
Wi Fi is kind of its own special little beast.
It's radio.
And essentially what that means is there are Wi Fi specific things
that can impact your Wi Fi connectivity.
Those include the distance, the distance between your computer connected to Wi Fi
and the Wi Fi antenna frequency channel, and channel interference.
If you've got a bunch of devices that are using Wi Fi and they're all
using the same channel, that can also result in slow, intermittent connections.
There are both frequencies to choose from, 2.
4, but even within those frequencies, there are channels that you can look at.
There are devices and techniques that will allow you to determine what the
optimum channel is for your situation.
Electrical interference from other devices turns out to
be a big one, especially in the 2.
4 GHz range, because there are devices that use the 2.
4 GHz range, specifically cordless landline phones.
Some of them do use 2. 4.
And if you receive a phone call and your Internet connection drops, guess what?
That may very well be the issue.
Also, other devices, like microwave ovens, often throw out a lot of electrical
noise, a lot of radio noise.
That, too, can impact almost anything that's wireless, that's in proximity.
Signal blockage from large pieces of metal.
This one is a little bit harder to identify.
But if there's something large and metallic between your machine and your
antenna, that can cause interference.
The one that's a little bit sneaky is that many buildings, often office
buildings, are now being built using aluminum or metal structure they use,
instead of using wood, two by fours.
Here in the United States, they have these aluminum things that are lighter,
and I don't know if they're stronger or whatever, but they're metal,
and they're arranged in a grid.
Depending on where you are and how the building is constructed
and how far away that Wi Fi access point is, even the building you're in
can interfere with what you're doing.
And finally, on this side, antenna size.
They say size doesn't matter, but that's absolutely wrong
when it comes to antennas.
If you have the opportunity to put appropriate replacement antennas on either
or both your access point, the antenna on your router,
or on the Wi Fi access point, and or you have the option to attach
a different antenna or a larger antenna to whatever wireless device you're using,
that, too, can help improve your ability to receive a wireless signal.
Number six other hardware issues.
A surprisingly common problem for wired connections is the cable.
It's not uncommon for cables, especially if they've been in use
for some time, to get stepped on, to get chewed on, to get bent in weird
shapes, all that kind of stuff.
They can continue to work or appear to work, but at some point, they can get to
like the verge of not working, that can manifest as intermittent connectivity.
The way to deal with that, it's an easy one.
Replace the cable, get a new one, plug it in and see if that
doesn't help the issue.
Number seven, software issues.
I've not talked about anything actually on any of the computers
except for your Wi Fi.
If you're using a VPN, if you are using security software
that is doing some special things to monitor your Internet connection,
if you've got a firewall, if you've got.
There's so many different things that can be running on your pc that could interact
with your Internet connection that it's worth understanding what those are.
Like I said, VPN is an obvious one.
It's essentially an Internet connection over your Internet connection.
Your security software can sometimes actually try and get itself
into the Internet connectivity in such a way that it can keep you safe
from things coming down the wire.
But it can also add problems of some sort. Firewalls.
Of course, normally this isn't something you have to look at, especially
in recent versions of Windows.
The Windows firewall is actually pretty good.
It's not really having the problems that older firewalls used to have, but if
there's a firewall, could be a problem.
And of course incorrect network settings can manifest in all sorts
of odd kind of ways, including intermittent connectivity.
One approach to dealing with this latter one is to actually
go to device manager, locate the device, the network device that you're talking
about that you're having problems with, and remove it from device manager.
That is one of the ways, one of the standard ways that forces windows
to reload the driver and reset the settings for that network connection
that sometimes can make things better.
Number eight, we have to be realistic about this.
It is possible that your ISP could be having a problem.
One of the things to do, and I've run into this myself, I've had Internet
connectivity problems here at home.
But one of the first things I do is I go check out my Internet provider's
website often like using my mobile phone and its mobile connection as opposed to
my home Internet connection, which might not be working.
It's not uncommon for them to actually have status that says, hey, sorry,
we know there's a problem, we're working on it, and here's an ETA.
Sometimes, depending on your ISP, you may need to call them and ask them if
something is up or if there is something specific about your connection that they
can identify as being the problem.
But those are the things to look at.
Connectivity issues can be super, super frustrating.
I get that. And it's unfortunate that it's this way.
But hopefully now youve got a few things to look at, a few things to check,
at least a few things to understand, to help hopefully diagnose your
Internet connectivity problems.
For updates, for comments, for links related to this topic
and more, visit
askleo.com/169894.
I'm Leo Notenboom and this is askleo.com.
Thanks for watching.