Troubleshooting internet problems caused by your router

Troubleshooting internet problems caused by your router

There are a few basic tools to use when troubleshooting your internet.

ipconfig, nslookup, and ping

There are two services that you need to be aware of with your router and that is DNS and DHCP. DNS stands for Domain Naming System and DHCP is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Basically the router assigns a LAN local area network address using DHCP from your router and uses the global DNS systems to resolved IP addresses that look like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. You don�t need to know that but it helps.

Renew your IP address

If your internet does not work then you can try to run the Start �> Search cmd �> then ipconfig /renew

This will try to negotiate an IP address from the DHCP service on the router. If it fails you can try to set a static IP address.

Try setting a static IP address

Go into the network adaptor that is having problems with the internet and try to setup the connection statically. To do this you open the network connections page from the control panel. Right-click the adaptor to get to the properties and select the IPv4 settings.

You will need to know the IP�s the router is assigning otherwise this will not work. The most common set of IP�s by default on most routers is either 192.168.1.1-255 or 192.168.0.1-255 and the subnet is always 255.255.255.0 by default. This allows for 254 addresses at the most. You would need to change the subnet in the router before you could handle more than 254 clients. Most homes don�t have that many devices. Yet !-)

I changed my router to use the 10.0.0.1 range it does not matter what it is. You just need to know what they are. Now you can try to connect to the router using the gateway address or you can try to ping it from the command using ping 10.0.0.1

Check to see if you are connected to the router and get the current IP configuration

To do this just go Start �> Search cmd �> ipconfig /all

This will tell you all about your current network setting for all network adaptors on your computer.

From this you can tell:

1. Assigned IP 10.0.0.10
2. Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
3. Default Gateway 10.0.0.1 ( Normally 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 )
4. DNS Servers 10.0.0.1 ( Primary )

Check to see if your DNS is working correctly

The last command you can use to test your DNS server. Type the nslookup google.com and if your DNS is working it will return the IP address. If you did ping test ping google.com and failed but tried with IP instead of domain name then yo have a DNS problem.

Try to override the DNS with the best DNS servers your ISP has. Do a google search for IPS + location + DNS and you should find some info. You can always use a DNS service as well.

Google has a free public DNS Service you can use in place of your ISP�s DNS settings to resolve internet web sites

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