App2SD: To be fair, since the time of about Android Froyo (2.2), this feature has been available in the core of Android, one way or another. However, it doesn't necessarily work very well. Even as late as 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, Galaxy devices couldn't properly move apps to SD. Regardless, this application gives the user a central location to see all apps and choose which ones to move to the SD card. This feature is now available in the App Manage section of LBESM.

AdFree Android: LBESM now has it's own Ad Blocker section in the settings. In fact, it's slightly more powerful in that it lets you choose to block or allow ads on an app by app basis.

AVG Anti-Virus: I must admit that this one makes me a bit nervous and I haven't quite given up on AVG just yet. For one thing, AVG has been in the virus protection gig for a long time. Granted, Android is a new platform by comparison, but I'm still not overly keen on fully trusting a relatively unknown application to protect me from viruses over a long-standing champion in the field. For what it's worth, LBESM's protection is cloud-based, meaning the signatures are stored online and therefore never out-of-date.

Also, LBESM currently has a section called Security Plugins that have not yet been translated. The two plugins currently available are: Privacy Space, which I presume is a secure cloud storage option and Mobile Security. The latter of course, is vital. It allows you to find, track and even wipe your device, should it be lost or stolen. Since this plugin has not yet been translated, I have to rely on my AVG to continue to provide this feature.

An honourable mention should also go out to Lookout Mobile Security which although I haven't included it on this site, also offers the same protection as AVG, including this theft-protection. I know I haven't included this latter program on my site, but I do have it installed on my phone. I can't really decide which one I like better, but defaulted to AVG when picking one for the site, due to it's long-standing reputation.

BatteryMinder: I'm not a huge fan of the remaining battery power options built into Android. I prefer to have the information available to me at a glance, in the notification bar. BatteryMinder allows this and while it does a slightly better job at it, the free version is ad supported, if you don't block them and it frequently tries to access information about your device that I'm not overly thrilled in sharing with developers. Of course, LBESM finds and blocks these attempts.

While the notification isn't as nice, the Battery section of LBE Security Manager does allow you to setup specific power management profiles and add the current battery usage to the notification bar.

CacheMate For Root Users: Within Android itself, you can delete the cache for individual apps, on a singular basis. With this program you can do so for all apps with a single click. This option is also built into LBESM, in the Speedup section and also available as a widget.

Home Manager: Hidden within the Settings page of LBESM you can choose which home screen launcher you want to use by default.

Traffic Counter Extended: I love the home screen widgets of this app, so I probably won't get rid of this app, yet. However, LBESM does have very nice traffic management capabilities. While Android does have this built in now, there are many after market apps that handle it much better, both this program and LBESM are such programs.

One thing that LBESM offers, that I haven't seen in any other app is a real-time traffic monitor. By default it appears at the very top of the screen, below the status bar, while traffic is being transmitt. There are also plenty of options to configure or disable this.

From the LBE Task Manager interface, you also gain access to Traffic reports for both the current day and in real-time, broken down by app as well as a summary for both Mobile and WiFi transfers.

Watchdog Task Manager Lite: I used to use after-market task managers to kill apps that were running the background. I realized after some reading, that my efforts were futile, as Android handles memory management different than Windows does. Instead, I switched to Watchdog, because it keeps an eye on what apps use the most CPU cycles and informs you when something is being a resource hog. With today's multi-core CPUs and greater storage capacities, this is less of a concern. While I still have this app installed for now, I haven't seen it warn me about anything in quite some time.

Part of the reason for that is that LBESM also has the the ability to prevent certain apps from launching on startup in it's Speedup section, meaning that you can prevent anything but your most important apps from launching when the device boots.

If you've made it here from the general connectivity troubleshooting you've probably already done this. That's because it's the golden rule. If something, anything with your connection doesn't work, reboot your equipment and try again.

Think of your router as you would your computer. Now, if you leave your computer running for 3 months at a time, without rebooting, it generally doesn't seem to behave itself so well, does it? There's no difference with a router. It's a complex device with a lot of responsibilities. As such, it tends to act up from time to time.

A standard home router has several tasks, including:

• operating the Firewall to keep malicous traffic out of your network
• providing a gateway to the Internet
• acting as a DHCP server, to provide IP addresses to client devices and computer connecting to it from behind the router
• managing network traffic as a smart switch
• and if it's wireless, it also has to be a wireless hub

So, that's five devices in one. If the wired works, but the wireless connection doesn't, or if the internal connection works, but you can't connect to the Internet, these are all possible symptoms of your router simply needing to be restarted. Unplug it for a minute and try again. It's that simple. Routers will do some very strange things, so don't be surprised if rebooting it makes it work again.

Note: It's a good idea, for all connectivity, to reboot your modem and your router once a month. It doesn't matter if you're using DSL or cable Internet or any other type of connection. Reboot monthly.

The next step is to make sure the cables are correct. Never assume nothing has changed. I can't tell you how many times people have sworn up and down that the cables are correct only to find they or someone in the home moved them, knocked them loose or something similar. So, let's cover the basics.

Power

First, the power cord. I said this was going to be basic, didn't I? Is the power cord plugged in? Are the lights for the router on? Do you need to try a different outlet? Is the power cord that's connected to the router the same one that came with the router? It needs to be the same voltage rating. Don't assume, check.

Worse yet, are all the lights on, as in, there's not a single light on the router off, whatsoever? If so, that might mean it's faulty, has the wrong power supply connected to it or needs to be reset.

Internet

In addition to the power cord, there will be several ports on the back of the router for Ethernet cables. Most routers act as four port switches. So, there will be four Ethernet ports on the back to which various devices can connect, such as your computers, network capable printers and any other device that has Ethernet capabilities.

There will however, be one other Ethernet port. This one is usually a different colour, or it's labeled differently. Instead of having numbered connections, such as one through four, this other port is usually labeled one of the following:

• WAN
• Internet
• Modem

That's the port to which you connect the Ethernet cable that comes from the modem your ISP gave you. Of course, you may have also purchased your own modem, but you get the point.

Note: Apple routers of course, have to do things differently. There is at least one model of Airport that only has one Ethernet port on the back. The concept is that you plug it into your computer, configure it, then unplug it from your computer and plug it into the modem. From there on in, the Airport router can only be connected to wirelessly, which is great if it actually keeps working.

PC Connection(s)

The final connections are the managed switch ports. These are usually numbered one through four, since most routers support four devices through wired connections. This is where you plug the Ethernet cables coming from your various computers and devices.

Note: It is recommended, for all router troubleshooting, to use a computer that is hardwired to the router through one of these four ports. While you can do troubleshooting with a router over a wireless connection, it takes considerably longer, especially if you're rebooting the router constantly. If you do not have a spare Ethernet cable, you could temporarily borrow the one from the modem to the router. Just move the end that's plugged into the router into one of the numbered ports and the other end into your computer. Complete your troubleshooting and when you're done or ready to test the Internet connection again, move the cable back.

Put It All Together

Here is the the back of a Linksys router.

Not all routers will look exactly like this of course, but this is a good reference. The components are as follows:

• On the far left of the image we see the Reset button, recessed so that you can't hit it accidentally. Normally, you need a paperclip to press this button.
• Next to that we have the Internet/WAN connection. Notice how this Ethernet port is separate from the rest? Often, the plastic insert around the jack itself will be a different colour.
• The next four Ethernet jacks are together because they are all interchangeable. This is where you connect any device or computer you wish to gain access to the Network or Internet through this router. On this model, as with most, you can have up to four devices connected by cable, as well as several connected wirelessly.
• Finally, we have the power outlet. That one should be pretty obvious.

Some routers will of course, have antennas, but they don't need to. External antennas are not necessary for a router to provide wireless Internet, just as it's not necessary for your cellphone to have an external antenna anymore, either.

Obtain Your Router's IP

Now, you need to log into the router. So, we need to find out the IP address of the router. There's lots of ways to do this, but the most consistent is to click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt.

Then, type following command at the DOS prompt:

ipconfig /all

This is going to give you a lot of information. You will probably need to scroll back up to the top to see it all and find the adapter we're looking for. The key is that there are several sections of information, each one representing a different component within your system. The information will be broken down something like this:

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information and so on…

Some specific adapter Ethernet adapter:

Media State … … … . . : Media disconnected <~~ This would mean it's an Ethernet adapter that has no cable plugged into it.
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information and so on…

Some other specific adapter (Ethernet or Wireless/WLAN or Tunnel adapter):

Autoconfiguration IP address … … … . . : 169.254.xxx.xxx <~~ This means Windows gave up waiting for an IP and assigned one itself.
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information and so on…

Among the many adapters you will find one that has been assigned an IP address. Here's an example of the adapter we're actually looking for:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection (or possible a Wireless/WLAN adapter): <~~ Remember, I told you we really shouldn't use a wireless adapter for this troubleshooting, though.

Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information
IPv4 Address… … … . . : 192.168.1.100(Preferred) <~~ That is your computer's IP address, as assigned by your router.
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information
Default Gateway … … … : 192.168.1.1 <~~ This is the magic number. This is the IP address you use to log into your router.
Some heading … … … … : information
Some heading … … … … : information and so on…

Note: In XP and older versions of Windows, IPv4 will just say IP address.

I'm Not Able To Determine The Router IP

The two errors demonstrated above are different in nature, but have similar results and causes. If your computer returns a 169.254.x.x IP address, then Windows essentially gave up waiting for the router to hand it an address. If the command returned a Media Disconnected error, then the computer isn't even seeing anything plugged into the Ethernet port.

Regardless of the error, we can diagnose both the same way. First of all, did you connect the Ethernet cable, like we were supposed to? If you did, then it's possible the cable isn't seated properly, or the cable is damaged. It's also possible that either the Ethernet port on the router or the computer is somehow faulty. Try another port on the router. Try another cable, if possible. It's very unlikely you have one, but you may be able to try another Ethernet port on the computer. If possible, try another computer. If you continually get the same errors, then you'll need to Bypass The Router.

Log Into The Router

Okay, now that you have the router's IP which was labeled as Default Gateway, we'll open up your browser (Internet Explorer/Firefox/Opera/Chrome/Safari) and erase the address bar. Type in the IP address of your router, which was that Default Gateway number we just discovered and hit Enter. Here are the typical IP addresses for routers:

• 192.168.0.1 (typical for D-Link and NetGear routers)
• 192.168.1.1 (typical for Linksys and TP-Link routers)
• 192.168.2.1 (typical for Belkin routers)
• 10.0.1.1 (typical for Apple routers)

There are of course, many brands of routers, but those IP addresses the most common. TRENDnet is an interesting brand. Depending on the model, the default IP for their routers may be 192.168.0.1 or 1.1 or 2.1. I guess they like to keep their options open.

With a couple brands of routers, you won't be asked to log into the device until you navigate away from the Status page to one of the configuration pages. That's where you will need the Username and Password for the router.

I Have The IP Address But I Can't Bring Up The Router's Page

There are two things that can cause this. Either the router is not letting you log in because it's experiencing difficulties, or your computer is. More often than not it's the router. Start by Resetting Your Router. Then, reacquire the router's IP address and try to log in once again.
If you still can't log into it, then Bypass The Router.

The Default Password

The default administrator username and password for the vast majority of routers is either admin/admin or admin/password. In other words, admin is the Username as well as the Password, or admin is the Username and the Password is the actual word, password. It's not usually possible to change the Username. Only a very few higher end models of D-Link routers and routers that have been flashed with after market Firmware like DD-WRT allow you to change the Administrator Username.

Did You Forget Your Password?

If you've changed the Password to something, but can't remember what, look around for a piece of paper on which you may have written it. Is it the same as your E-Mail Password, or the Password that you use for connecting to your ISP? I can't answer that for you. You will need to know or remember it yourself. You only get three tries, though. After that, the router will give you an authorization error. You can still try logging in, but you'll have to retype the IP in the address bar to start again.

Default Router Passwords

If that hasn't worked, you can try to find the Default Username and Password for your particular model and brand of router. RouterPasswords.com may help, or any of these sites: CIRT.net or Default Passwords List.

If all else fails and you simply cannot log into the router, reset it and start again from obtaining the router's IP.

Once you're inside the router, the next challenge is navigating inside the interface in order to configure the router. Since there are so many interfaces, I can't cover them all. Even the main router manufacturers have variations in their setups that can be quite different. The best I can do is give you an idea of what you're looking for.

General Navigation

Linksys and most D-Link routers will have tabs along the top of the page, with headings like Setup (or Home), Wireless, Advanced (or Administration) and Status.

Some D-Link routers will also have buttons down the left hand column that change according to the tab that you're at on the top. For the Home tab, as an example, you will have WAN, LAN and Wireless, among others.

A third possibility is that you will have no tabs along the top, but there will be several links down the left column. Clicking on one of these links will often, but not always, expand that section into more options. NetGear routers for example, will have Setup, Maintenance and Advanced.

Where To Start

Routers will direct you to one of two pages when you start. You will either be on their Status page, which just gives you information about the router's current configuration and status (I know, obvious, eh?), or their Setup pages, which is usually called Setup or Home.

If you're on the Status page, look for the Setup page. We want to configure the connection, so the link you're looking for will usually be labeled:

• WAN Setup
• Internet Connection
• Configuration
• Basic
• Basic Settings
• Setup
• Setup Wizard
• Home

Do you see the pattern here?

As mentioned earlier, with a couple brands of routers, you won't be asked to log into the device until you navigate away from the Status page to one of the configuration pages.

Let's See What I Mean

The Choices That Have Been Made For You

I can't hand hold you through this entire process. You will need to think a bit and make choices based on common sense. It's not that scary. You're not going to break anything by mis-configuring your router. Remember, you can always just reset it and start again, if you get completely lost.

Now that you've found the correct page, you're either in some form of Wizard or setup page that has a bunch of fields you need to configure. Routers without a Wizard will provide a selection of options for the various types of Internet connection you can use.

The Wizard: If the router has a Wizard, it may ask you if your Internet connection requires a Password. This is not something you get to choose yourself. If your ISP uses a PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet), then you would select Yes. Otherwise, select No.

The Manual Configuration (no **Wizard):** There are a handful of setups that you can choose for your connection type, but they all depend on what your ISP uses, not what you would like to use. Some of the connection types available on the router are actually technologies that I'm not even sure are being used anymore, like PPTP and L2TP. Instead, you will likely select one of these three options: Static, PPPoE or DHCP (also called Automatic Configration/Dynamic IP).

Static IP: If you've purchased a Static IP, you may have to set this up in your router by choosing the Static option. No ISP will give you a Static IP without charging you extra for it. So, you will know if you have one or not. Your ISP will then likely have provided you with some combination of the following information:

• IP address
• DNS servers
• Gateway
• SubNet Mask

Enter all of that information in the appropriate fields. However, not every Static IP works that way. Some are more seamless than others. For example, The ISP I work for just assigns you the same IP address every time your connect. You would still select DHCP or PPPoE for your connection type. If in doubt about which way to setup your Static IP, ask your ISP.

DHCP (Automatic Configuration/Dynamic IP): This is the easiest type of connection. There really is no setup, because it's the default setting for all routers, off the shelf. Select this option if it's not already selected. If you're in a Wizard asking you whether or not you need a Password to connect, choose No.

PPPoE: This is the connection type that requires a Username and Password. These will have been provided to you by our ISP. If you don't know or remember what the are, you may have to contact your ISP. DSL providers and many wireless ISPs will require PPPoE. Enter the information when prompted.

Note: PPPoE setup will often ask you or have a field titled Service Name. While it is tempting to type the name of your ISP in this field, do not do so. It's not an optional label that you can just fill out if you so choose. Unless your ISP specifically told you to put something in the Service Name field, leave it blank. Otherwise, you won't be able to connect.

All other types: Sorry, but I'm not overly familiar with the other connection types and quite frankly, I don't think they're really in use anymore. You'll have to contact your ISP if you're sure you use L2TP for example, but don't know what information to setup in your router.

What Not To Touch

Your router may have dozens of other questions and fields for you to fill out. In the vast majority of cases, don't adjust them, like Host Name or Domain Name. For example, the router has it's own DHCP server that is required to hand out IP addresses to all of your devices and computers within your home/office network. When you see fields asking you whether to enable or disable that feature, leave it alone. The router is not talking about your ISP anymore. It's talking about your internal network. So, don't change the settings from default or you will probably break your internal network.

Basically, what I'm telling you is that routers have a lot of power and functionality above and beyond what the vast majority of people will use. Just because an option is available, doesn't mean you should mess with it. If you don't know what it is, don't touch it. The default settings for PPPoE and DHCP work just fine in hundreds of millions of cases. The instructions I've given for those two setups are all you need to worry about in all of those cases, for which I've designed this guide. The chances something here won't work the same on your connection are miniscule.

I've Chosen My ISP Type, Now What?

At this point, you can probably Save or Apply the settings in order to initiate the new connection type for your router. The router will typically reboot and may even give you a countdown timer while it restarts. You're done! Your Internet connection should now work, if you've selected the correct options. Once the page loads, click on the Status tab and look for your WAN/Internet IP address. If it's not Disconnected or 0.0.0.0 then you are probably online and should be able to surf.

If you have issues with some sites, but not all, or instability issues with a VPN, it might be an MTU problem. In that case, you should check the MTU section below, but it's not a common problem. During normal router setup, this would not be something you would worry about. You'd only look into MTU issues if you're specifically trying to troubleshoot an existing problem on a router that is already setup and working, but poorly.

If you still can't connect, but you've made it this far and you're sure you setup the router to the correctly, then it's time to Bypass The Router. Otherwise, you must be online.

I'm Online! Am I Done?

Not quite. If you are successfully connected at this point and your router is wireless, then we do have more work to do. You will need to either disable your wireless network if you're not going to use it, or encrypt it,. Otherwise, your neighbours might steal your Internet connection, whether they're doing so intentionally or not. Yes, it is possible to unintentionally use someone else's network. So, adding encryption eliminates that possibility.

Connect one PC directly to the modem with an Ethernet cable, taking the router out of the mix altogether. If your ISP requires it, Setup PPPoE on that PC and test your connection. Otherwise, you're likely using DHCP, which means that you simply plug your PC into the modem, wait about 30 seconds and try to surf the web once again.

For some reason, the concept of physically bypassing a router seems overly complex to people when you explain it to them. So, here's a before and after diagram to simplify the process:

If the connection works through the PC, but not your router, reconnect the router, reset it and try again. This is where the Hard Resets, the 30/30/30 and the Firmware Upgrades may be required. It depends on how stubborn the router is going to be. If you keep getting a good WAN/Internet IP address on the router, but are never able to connect to the Internet through the router, then you may and that's a very iffy may, be able to contact your ISP for assistance. There is a slight chance this is actually an outage with your ISP or that they will help you with the router.

If your connection doesn't work on your PC either, then go to Basic High-Speed Connectivity troubleshooting and start working from the Network Card Issues section. Return here at any point if you are once again able to view web pages.

Again, I'm going to have to be vague about these steps, because each router will be different. While most will have a Wireless tab where you setup the basic settings and then a Wireless Security tab where you setup the security portion, not all of them do it the same way.

Encryption Sounds Too Complicated For Me

It's not overly complicated and it's a very good idea to learn about it, which is why I'll explain what everything means and what you do and don't want to use:

• SSID (Service Set Identifier), otherwise known as the Network name - You need to set this. The router will come with a default name that is something really lame like Default, or the brand of the router, like D-Link. Instead, choose a Network name that you're going to remember, but that's not overly personal, because other people can see it, as well.

• Channel - This has nothing to do with security, but it can dramatically impact your wireless stability and reception. If you're in a crowded neighbourhood or you use a device that is on the same wireless spectrum as your router, like a phone or baby monitor, then you can run into problems. Some routers will have an Auto feature, meaning they will attempt to adjust the Channel if they find interference. Otherwise, your choices in North America are Channels 1-11 and in Europe, you have two additional Channels. However, only Channels 1, 6 and 11 don't overlap with other Channels in the spectrum. If you need to manually adjust the Channel, stick with those three, whenever possible.

• WiFi Protected Setup, WPS or Secure Easy Setup - This was supposed to be an automated encryption process, but it doesn't work well, because it's not widely supported. Disable it whenever you can. It's a standard that never really took off and because of that it's more of a nuisance than a convenience. There are other brand specific names for similar features on different brands of routers, but they all boil down to the same thing; another example of a standard that wasn't formalized and so each manufacturer did their own thing, creating a big, sloppy mess of the idea.

• WEP Key, Pre-Shared Key, Shared Key, Passphrase - These are all fancy ways of saying password. Basically, what happens is that you choose an encryption method and a Password. The router uses the Password to scramble the wireless signal with the encryption type you chose and that's how your network becomes secure.

Security Modes:

• Disabled - This is a bad idea, unless you live 300' from any neighbours, road or frequently traveled body of water. Otherwise, people can tap into your Network and not only use your bandwidth, but capture your traffic and spy on you.

• WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) - You might as well not use anything. Anyone smart enough to snoop on your Network is smart enough to hack through WEP encryption in under two minutes. It's not the password that's the problem. The encryption concept itself is flawed and therefore, very easy to break.

• WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) (Personal/Pre-Shared Key) - Now we're talking! This is proper encryption. WPA comes in two cipher strengths: TKIP and AES. TKIP has been hacked, though. So, only use AES.

• WPA2 (Personal/Pre-Shared Key) - Finally, we get to the big brother of them all. WPA2 with either TKIP/AES is the best choice. However, since TKIP has been hacked, you're better off sticking with WPA2 with AES.

• WPA (Enterprise/Radius) - This is commercial grade wireless encryption. You can't use it, so don't worry about it.

Other Security Options

If you dig around in the router, many models will have some or all of these options of which you may be able to take advantage. I'll briefly discuss each one.

• MAC Filtering - You can filter out MAC addresses, so that only your approved devices can log in, but MAC spoofing makes it easy to get around that. In other words, don't bother.

• Disable Wireless Administration - You can also disable the configuration of the router through wireless connections, so that only wired devices can manage the router. That's not a bad idea.

• Disable SSID Broadcast - This prevents the Network name from being regularly transmitted. However, a decent packet sniffer will be able to determine what the SSID is, rendering this an ineffective precaution, as well.

All of these have some limited value in protecting your Network and privacy, but since nothing works as well as proper encryption and a decent Password, let's focus on that, instead:

Choosing A Passphrase Or Password

Always choose a Password you can remember, but the best Passwords are eight characters in length or more, have numbers, punctuation and mixed upper and lower case letters.

Another technique for making passwords easy to remember, but secure, is to replace some letters with numbers that look similar. The number 1 can replace the letters L and I. The number 0 of course, can replace the letter O. Here's some examples:

Bad Passwords

• Hockey - This is one of the most common passwords in Canada.
• ABC4567 - Beyond being too short and completely uncreative, this password also uses sequential numbers, making it easy to hack.
• Temp123, Pass123, Password - Yes, there are people who still use these as their passwords. These take under 1 second to hack.

Strong Passwords

• IHavADoktor8! - This looks like "I have a doctorate", but uses all the elements to make it a safe password.
• bA!nA!na!5! - This looks like "bananas" and again includes all the recommended elements.
• Go away 2011! - Believe it or not, despite having dictionary words, the sheer size of this password and the other elements it includes, makes this a very safe password, as well.

You're done. Now, you just have to Connect Your Wireless Computers to the router using this newly created Network name and Password.

Administration Password

The final Security measure to enable that really does help is changing the Admin password on the router. The first time you log into a DD-WRT router it forces you to choose not only a new Administrator login name, but also a Password. For all other routers, you need to find this option.

Since admin/admin or admin/password is the default login for 99% of routers on the market, what do you think hackers are doing right now? That's right. There are scripts rampant across the Internet that continuously try to hack into routers remotely, by using the default Username and Passwords. As proof of concept, hackers have even been able to infect routers with viruses, once they were able to hack into them.

Let's avoid that, by changing the password right away.

How Can I Tell If It's An MTU Issue?

This can be a tough problem to diagnose. I have also written a guide for MTU troubleshooting, which may help. However, even that's not foolproof, because browser issues might simulate the problems that you will also experience with MTU. The best advice I can give you is to complete Browser troubleshooting first. In order to narrow it down a bit more, here's a list of issues that can be caused by an incorrect MTU:

• slow VPN speeds
• intermittent VPN connection
• inability to get to specific websites, usually secure sites such as Hotmail.com or your banking website
• extreme functionality or speed issues with specific sites, again this usually impacts Hotmail.com and other secure sites

What Are The Values?

Normally, the router default is fine and MTU is not something you have to change. 1500 is the default for DHCP and 1492 is the default for PPPoE. If you need to adjust this, the value will always be an even number, less than 1492, but should never be lower than about 1400. Otherwise, there is likely something else very wrong with your connection, at which point you should contact your ISP or call your IT department if it's related to a VPN connection.

Where Would I Change It?

Typically, MTU settings are adjusted on the Setup page, where you told the router what type of connection you use. Other routers may hide it in Advanced settings. You might have to dig around through the various screens to find it. Sorry, I can't be more specific, but here's some examples to give you an idea.

How Often Does This Happen?

While it is a very small percentage of people that ever see MTU issues, it is still worth mentioning. So, let's examine a couple of well known examples in greater detail.

WoW (World Of Warcraft)

In late 2010, Blizzard Entertainment released an update to their game World Of Warcraft (WoW). This update effectively broke the game for thousands of people, but only on specific connections. For some gamers, on certain ISP's, their connection became incredibly slow, unstable and unplayable. The workaround at the time, was to manually adjust the MTU to a number significantly lower than the default. An MTU setting of 1452 is what worked. This value made the rest of their connection incredibly slow, but at least their WoW game was once again usable. I remember this, because we fielded hundreds of calls about the issue, before Blizzard finally recognized the problem and corrected it with an update patch.

VPN's

VPN's are notoriously difficult to troubleshoot. The main reason is that the person troubleshooting is not likely talking to the person who configured the VPN in the first place. In other words, your IT department sets up a VPN, that for whatever reason, doesn't work well on your connection. You call your ISP, but of course, what really needs to happen is that your ISP and your IT need to have a conversation about the settings. Good luck getting either one talking to the other party. Instead, know that the MTU size is very likely what's impacting your service. Use the MTU troubleshooting to determine what your current unfragmented packet size is both with your VPN software on and off. Let your IT department know and they may very well have you adjust your MTU within the router. Honestly, don't call your ISP about this. It's not their problem. If you're adventerous, you can also try to adjust it yourself through a bit of trial and error, once you know your unfragmented packet sizes.

One other thing I haven't mentioned yet is that VPN's usually need a few custom settings to be enabled within the router. If your router supports VPN pass through and I don't know of any that don't, then there are usually options in the Advanced/Tools/Security section of your router wherein you can enable options such as VPN/IPSec/PPTP/L2TP Passthrough. These are probably enabled by default, but if not, turn on the settings that apply for your VPN connection. If in doubt, enable them all. I probably gave some security analysts a heart attack. If so, they need to stop being quite so paranoid. The chances of enabling a VPN feature that isn't necessary having a negative impact on either your connection or your VPN is beyond miniscule. Besides, if someone is that determined to get into your connection, you have bigger problems and they're likely going get in through much easier means anyway, like that six character, dictionary word password that you refuse to change to something more secure. Yes, I'm talking to you.

I (Think That I) Know It's An MTU Problem. Now What?

Once you find the appropriate screen, there are usually a couple settings: Manual/Automatic and a field for the actual MTU value. Select Manual so that you can then adjust the number to your desired value and Save or Apply the settings. You probably want to set this value to the largest unfragmented packet size you were able to find by completing MTU troubleshooting. A router reboot will usually follow.

If it was an MTU issue and you selected the correct value, then when the router reconnects, the connection will work much better. If not, revert the changes and call your ISP, unless it's a VPN you're troubleshooting. If it's a VPN problem, call your IT department instead, because VPN's are not your ISP's issue to worry about.

If nothing has worked so far, it might be time to reset the router. Here are a few times that you would need to do so:

• You've forgotten the Password for the router and can't log into it anymore, but need to in order to reconfigure it.
• You cannot login, need the wireless key and have no other means of accessing the key, such as through a device that is successfully connected to the router.
• All the lights are lit up on the router, despite there being no cables connected to the Ethernet ports.
• You've already rebooted and tried to reconfigure the router, but it still won't work properly.

Whatever, the reason, let's get to work. Look on the back of the router for a small hole, that probably has a label on it that says Reset, or something similar, like Factory Defaults. With the power still plugged in, use a paper clip to press and hold that button in for six seconds, and only six seconds. That should reset the vast majority of routers.

Some routers have a reset button on the top or front of them. Some even have them underneath, on the "belly" of the router. I've even seen one router that had a compartment that you had to open in order to reveal the Reset button. Those are all very rare, but they do exist.

There are also a few brands of routers that require you to hold the Reset button for about 20 seconds in order to make it revert back to factory defaults. So, the normal 6-10 second reset is not enough, but again, those are rare. If in doubt, check the manual.

If you reset the router correctly, you should be able to log back into it with the default Username and Password.

Hard Reset vs. Soft Reset

This process is known as a Hard Reset. Some routers have a Soft Reset. This is a feature within the router's interface itself, usually on the Advanced tab, wherein you can choose to Reset the router to factory defaults. Don't bother using Soft Resets, unless you're just trying to erase some changes you just made. A Soft Reset will not make a router that is acting up, function properly again. Whenever possible, use the Hard Reset, instead.

One final thing you need to keep in mind with a Reset is that if you do hold it in too long, you might cause it to switch into Firmware Upgrade Mode only. For most routers, holding the reset button for 10-15 seconds will cause this to happen. This is not what you wanted to do.

Firmware Upgrade Mode

This is what happens if you held the Reset button too long. You see, I said hold the Reset button for six seconds and only six, because people suck at following instructions. They either can't count, or they try to second guess the instructions I've given and hold in for a few extra seconds and the result is Firmware Upgrade Mode.

Generally, you need to hold in the Reset button for 10-15 seconds for this to happen. It won't hand out IP addresses anymore. The interface disappears and if you try to log into it, you get a screen that only lets you do one thing: select a Firmware file that is stored somewhere on your computer in order to upgrade the router. While that can be handy, for obvious reasons, that's not what we wanted to do for this troubleshooting.

If you get the Firmware upgrade screen after you've Reset the router and attempted to log into it, then you held the button too long. You haven't done any damage, but you will need to Reset it again to get back to the normal interface. So try again, but don't hold the button as long next time.

30/30/30

Sometimes, nothing works. You've rebooted the router, reconfigured it, then Reset it and yet it still won't work properly, or maybe, you can't log into the router, at all. If that's the case, you only have two more options. The first, is a 30/30/30, so called because of the process you use to recover the router. The second would be upgrading the Firmware, which will be covered last.

Performing a 30/30/30 is a technique that's used as a type of brute force fix for your router. It works with most brands.

• You start by Resetting the router for a full 30 seconds.
• With the Reset button still held in, unplug the router and leave it unplugged for 30 more seconds. Of course, you can release the Reset button, at this point.
• Plug the power back in while holding the reset button for 30 more seconds.
• Release the reset button and wait. In a few more seconds, you should once again be able to log into the router and reconfigure it.

If this worked, you should be able to log back into the router with its default Username and Password.

Warning! Never upgrade your router's Firmware over a wireless connection. Only use a computer that is directly connected to the router using an Ethernet cable. You've been warned.

Finally, we reach the last ditch effort to make a router behave, the Firmware upgrade. Think of this like reformatting your computer and reinstalling Windows. It's not much different.

Each router will have a Firmware upgrade feature somewhere in it's options. Usually, you can locate it on the Advanced or Tools tab. You'll have to dig around for it. Alternately, you could perform a Reset for 10-15 seconds, which usually forces the router into Firmware Upgrade Mode.

Find Your Router Information

Before you start, you'll need to follow these steps:

• Find the Model Number of your router. It's usually located in the top left or right corners of the router's interface. This is common information that is usually displayed on every page of the router screens. Here's some examples of what Model Numbers look like:
  • DIR-615
  • WRT54G
  • BEFSR41

• Next, you need to find the Hardware Revision and Firmware Version. Again, this is often located in the top left or right corners of the router's interface. However, if it's not there, you'll probably have to check the Status page. It might look something like this:
  • H/W 1.1 Rev. A, F/W 11.0.16
  • Hardware 2.0, Firmware 1.00

• Finally, there is usually a sticker on the bottom, or "belly" of the router that will tell you the router Model, Hardware and Firmware Version. Keep in mind though, that if you've ever upgraded the router Firmware before, this information may no longer be accurate.

Get The Proper Firmware

• Next, go to the website of the router manufacturer and lookup your specific model and version. Make sure to get the right country. Different countries have different version number schemes, as well. You probably want to go to the Downloads section and search for the latest Firmware.

• Download the appropriate latest Firmware Version for your router and save it somewhere you will be easily able to find it like your Desktop. Again double-check that you downloaded the right version, otherwise you can damage your router.

• If you notice that the latest version of the Firmware is actually the same version you already have installed, download it, anyway. It's quite possible that simply overwriting the current Firmware on a router with the same version, may make a misbehaving router once again work properly. It's always worth a shot, especially if you've made it this far and nothing else has worked.

Warning! If your router is using DD-WRT or a similar after-market Firmware like Tomato or OpenWRT, then do not flash it with the Firmware from the manufacturer, as you will "brick" it. In other words, you will break it. Instead, you need to find the proper DD-WRT version in order to upgrade or reflash it. For that I strongly recommend you take it to a technician or whomever flashed it with DD-WRT, in the first place.

Warning! Anytime you flash Firmware onto a device you risk damaging it. Even the manufacturers tell you it's a dangerous process. You can brick it even if you do everything correctly. So, make sure you have the correct Firmware before you start, because you don't want to give the process any reason to fail.

How likely is it to fail? That depends on a lot of things, but to put your mind at ease a bit, I've probably upgraded the Firmware on 100 routers through the years and only bricked 1.

By the same token, I've had close to a couple dozen routers come to me that were simply not functioning properly and I've flashed them with new Firmware from either the manufacturer or the custom DD-WRT Firmware and better than 80% of those are still functioning today, better than they ever have.

In other words, hope for the best, prepare for the worst and accept what comes. If upgrading the Firmware breaks the router, you're probably not out any money, because it's very likely that router was already on its way out the door, anyway. That's why this is the last step in our troubleshooting. It's kind of your last ditch effort to make things work.

Upgrade

• Now, you have the file you need, you can go back to the Firmware Upgrade option in the router's interface.
• Browse for the file you just downloaded. Select it and press the appropriate button to start the process: Apply/Save/Upgrade.
• The process will likely take about a minute. If it gives you any errors, it may be that you've downloaded the wrong version of the Firmware. Double-check that you've got the right version and redownload it, just in case.
• If you don't get an error, the router will restart itself and you're done. The router will now have the latest version of the Firmware installed and be ready for you to reconfigure it once again.

If you've tried all of these steps, and your router still won't work properly, it might be time for a new router. Take it to a technician, first. Get their opinion on the matter, just in case you missed something.

Fixed Wireless ISP: If you live in a rural area, you quite possibly have an ISP who provides you with Internet connectivity through a radio, also called a transceiver. The ISP will have radio equipment located on towers in various locations throughout their coverage area.

Each subscriber will then have a client radio, that is specifically tuned to receive the ISP's signal. These client radios are mounted externally, usually on the the top of a client-side tower, like old TV antennas used to use. From that equipment, a cable will run into the building and connect to a high-speed modem. This technology is called Fixed Wireless because you can only receive the Internet connection from the specific location at which it was installed.

The service is Wireless in that the connection to and from the client's location is provided through a radio signal, rather than a phone line or similar physical connection. This does not mean that they can walk around the property with a laptop and stay connected to the Internet. That is a different technology altogether and requires different equipment.

Fixed Wireless radios typically operate on 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 3.5GHz spectrums. That's important to understand, because if you have equipment that uses the same signal spectrum, it might interfere with your connection. Older cordless phones, baby monitors, security cameras and other Wireless devices used the 900MHz spectrum. Modern Wireless routers and devices frequently use the 2.4GHz spectrum, making the possibility for interference with those technologies quite common. The 3.5GHz spectrum however, is typically licensed. This means that only approved equipment and carriers can utilize that radio frequency. This minimizes the chances of Wireless interference, but certainly doesn't eliminate it.

The challenge with these systems is that they are a line of sight technology, which is why you have to have a radio mounted high in the air, outside of the location. The radio has to have a physical line of sight to the tower providing it with signal. Tree growth will be a challenge with these types of systems, because they will overtake the radio's line of sight and additional height often has to be added until the trees that are in the way reach maturity.

WiMax: This is a bit more advanced and is not as reliant on line of sight. The ISP will still maintain a transceiver on a tower which provides the signal. WiMax is capable of faster speeds, but its range is a fraction of what you can get with the line of sight technologies. However, with the right equipment, including devices as small as a USB stick, or even integrated into certain components, you could actually get Internet connectivity throughout the entire coverage area. This is useful in small urban areas. If the ISP has enough radios located in enough locations, WiMax could blanket an entire city with Wireless connectivity. Typically, WiMax runs on the 3.6GHz spectrum.

3G/4G: The big boys entered the market with cellular technology. With these services, you can connect to the Internet in very wide coverage areas, basically anywhere you can get cell phone service. It can be lightning fast, however the distance from the cell towers dramatically impacts the speeds. So, advertised speeds will often be many times faster than what you will actually receive.

Bandwidth is also a concern as many providers are still providing minuscule plans, a fraction of what you can get through traditional ISP connections and the overage fees can be exorbitant. In 2011, a typical ISP will offer a 60GB plan and overages will cost you around $1-2/GB. However, some 3G carriers will only offer you 5GB plans and charge you $0.05/MB for overages. That's equivalent to $50/GB. As ridiculous as that sounds, there are other carriers, in the United States for example, that are already offering unlimited bandwidth on their cellular data plans. So, there is some incredible disparity here that needs to be eliminated.

This is what you will traditionally think of when someone mentions Wireless technology. Laptops, Desktop PC's, tablet computers like the iPad, gaming consoles and even Wireless printers all feature Wireless capabilities now. This is completely different than the Wireless ISP connections we just discussed. While tablets like the iPad can have 3G technology built-in, their traditional Wireless connection will be through home Wireless technologies. Yes, that was pluralized, because there have been many generations of home Wireless, all falling within the 802.11 standards. Let's see what the main implementations of this technology have been:

Wireless A (802.11a) - 5GHz - 20Mbps (effectively): When this standard was first introduced routers were still priced out of the reach of home users. It's rarely used and has a short range. The benefits of A are that it utilizes the nearly emtpy 5GHz spectrum.

Wireless B (802.11b) - 2.4GHz - 11Mbps: Most early home routers utilized the this standard. In fact, because they use the same frequency range, most G routers will also support B. However, the speed of the B range is still quite slow at 11Mbps. Of course, as bandwidth demands increase as does Internet usage, this standard is quickly become too slow to be useful. B routers also have a short range, but it's certainly comparable to the A standard.

Wireless G (802.11g) - 2.4GHz - 54Mbps: By 2003, home networking was really beginning to take hold and home routers had now become quite affordable. It is currently 2011 and for the past 8 years, G routers have become common place. Nearly every household that utilizes Internet will also have a G router. Even 2 years after the N standard has been ratified and 3 years after it was first introduced, you can still readily purchase G routers and every Wireless device being manufactured still supports the G standard. With speeds as high as 54Mbps, home networking has become very fast and complex. The data rates of this Wireless standard are such that they can carry large amounts of traffic very easily. The use of gaming consoles and video streaming on a G router is extremely feasible and widespread.

Also, because it uses the same spectrum as the B standard, G routers have an effective range identical to that of their predecessors, which in theory is 125' inside a building, but over 450' in an open field. Of course, that's just theory and in practice it's actually significantly less.

Wireless N (802.11n) - 2.4GHz/5GHz - 108Mbps: As of the writing of this article, Wireless N is the latest standard. N routers are widespread and just as easy to purchase as G routers. All new devices support both G and N standards. With speeds as high as 108Mbps, Wireless N Routers have become very useful to home theater enthusiasts, because up until now, it was not possible to stream high definition videos across a Wireless network. Now that it is, many entertainment components such as hi-def television sets, A/V receivers and Blu-ray players support Wireless N technology. Some of them even have Wireless N cards built right into their systems.

Wireless N is the only standard that utilizes both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrums. The N standard took quite a significant amount of time to ratify and every manufacturer was releasing routers they claimed were N compliant, before the standard even officially existed. I'm sure that didn't help the process any. The biggest difference within the operation of the N standard is that it supports MIMO, which means multiple-input, multiple-output antennas. This means that N routers can use multiple signal ranges at the same time. It's a very odd direction for the standard to take, since all previous incarnations maintained only a single spectrum range.

The last major benefit of the N standard is that its effective range is significantly larger than that of the G spectrum. In theory, an N router has an indoor range of over 200' and an outdoor range of over 800'. To be honest, I have yet to see evidence of N routers reaching any further. However, most people are interested in the N router for its speed more so than its range.

Yeah? So, what?

What does all of this mean for you? Well, if you are looking for a home router, a G router is very affordable and practical for everything from home networking to Wireless gaming and sharing Internet connections. However, if you want a longer effective range and the ability now or in the future to be able to stream high definition videos, then go with an N router. They cost a little more, but they can also do a lot more, because of the higher speeds they are capable of maintaining.

 

First of all, if you're using a notebook computer, make sure that the Wireless Card is turned on. I also found this useful guide, detailing How To Toggle Wireless Cards On Various Notebooks.

If you can't find any Wireless networks available when using the Windows Wireless Utility and you are sure the router is properly configured, then there are two other possibilities. The first is that the utility is turned off, because another application is managing your Wireless networks, in which case you would need to Disable 3rd Party Wireless Utilities. The second option is that your Wireless Radio is turned off on the computer.

Wireless Switch Locations

All areas marked in red or blue on the image below are typical locations for buttons or switches that toggle the Wireless Radio:

• Above the keyboard, there are often a series of buttons which may have light indicators on them. If the Wireless Radio is controlled by one of these, there is usually a symbol that will look like an antenna or satellite dish.

• Along the left or right of the keyboard, on the top of the notebook, there might be buttons, similar to the ones I just described.

• Along the leading edge of the computer that is facing you, or possibly along either side of the computer, there might be switches. These come in many forms. They can be spring-loaded switches, physical sliders, or even a button. If your Wireless Switch is in one of these locations, it will usually have an LED that will illuminate when the Radio is On.

The Soft Switch

Finally, there are the items marked in blue. Many computers utilize a key-combination for accessing multiple features, such as changing monitor outputs, volume control and of course, toggling the Wireless Radio. The way that this works is that you press and hold the FN key in the bottom left corner of the keyboard and simultaneously press the appropriate Function key. At the top of the keyboard are the Function keys labeled F1 through F10. Examine the blue symbols that accompany these keys and you will likely see one that has a symbol that resembles a satellite dish or antenna. That is the key you would press in order to toggle the Wireless Radio.

If your computer has the FN key combination available it may also have a switch located in one of the other places. Generally, the FN key combination only toggles the software for the Radio, but there will often be a physical toggle, as well.

Once you've ensured the Radio is turned back on, wait about 30 seconds. Then, Refresh the Wireless Utility, so that it will scan for new signals available in the area. It should now see the router to which you are attempting to connect. If not, then ensure the Windows Wireless Service is enabled and that no 3rd Party Utility is attempting to manage the connection, instead.

This has always annoyed me. Almost every Wireless card manufacturer feels the need to release their own Wireless connection utility. It's as if they feel the need to reinvent the wheel. I have yet to see a Wireless utility that works better or offers any benefit over the one built into Windows. So, why bother?

For one thing, it's just another application, which nobody else knows how to use. Technical support agents will stumble around inside the utilities, looking for the screens equivalent to what they're used to using. Instead of messing around with them, we're going to turn them off, so that you can use the Windows Wireless Utility to connect.

In the Wireless section of Emulators troubleshooting I have links to view a number of Wireless utilities. You can also find a couple Wireless utility guides on Chasms.com, under the Networking section.

Here's a general guide for disabling those utilities:

• Locate the Wireless utility running in the system tray of your computer. That's the part of the screen in the bottom, right corner, by the clock. Press the arrow to expand the system tray, if you need to see all the icons. Look for an icon that usually resembles a set of stairs, or signal bars. On your system the icon may look something else, but that's okay, because as you roll over each one, Windows will tell you what they are. You are looking for something called a Wireless Utility, or Wireless Connection Manager.

• Once you have found the utility, you can do one of two things. You can either right-click the icon or double-left click the icon. Double-left click will often open the connection utility, whereas right-clicking the icon may give you a menu with several options. If you see an option to Let Windows manage my wireless network, Exit or Close the wireless utility, then choose that. Basically, we just want to tell the program to shut down and not try to manage the Wireless networks anymore. If you don't see a menu item that let's you shut it down, then choose the option to open the utility, instead.

• If you had to open the utility, then we'll need to dig around inside it for an equivalent option. On many utilities, you would click on the Wireless tab, uncheck an option labeled Let this tool manage your wireless networks and Apply the changes. In other programs, you might see an Advanced option or a drop-down box that has the utility run on system startup. Disable that feature, if you see it.

Sorry, I can't be more specific. There are so many possibilities of what this could look like or how it functions, that it's hard to narrow it down. You will need to use some intuition in order to determine which option you choose. Once you have managed to shut down the utility though, you probably need to turn the Windows Wireless Utility back on, so proceed to that section.

When a third party utility tries to manage the Wireless networks for you, they usually turn off the Windows Wireless Utility. In order to turn that back on, we need to open the Services console.

• Once you've located the item in the list, double-click on the entry to open the Service window.

• Ensure the Startup type drop-down box is set to Automatic.
• If the Service status indicates it's Stopped, then press the Start button in this window to reinitialize the service.

Note: The Start button will only be available in this window if the Service is Stopped. Conversely, if the Service is already running, the Stop and Pause buttons will be available. However, if the Resume button is available, then the Service is already running, but it's Paused for some reason. In that case, just press the Resume button.

• Once the Service has restarted, close both windows.

If you get an error starting the Wireless Service, do a Google search to find a resolution. I'm sorry, but that particular problem would fall outside the scope of this troubleshooting.

If the Service restarted without a hitch, you should now be able to use the Windows Wireless Utility in order to connect. However, Windows XP has one more setting we need to check.

You can now return to Using The Windows Wireless Utility.

First, let's open the Control Panel. You'll either click Start and then Control Panel, or you'll need to click Start, Settings and then Control Panel

If you have a wireless connection on your computer, look for your signal strength indicator in the bottom, right corner of your screen, by the clock. Press the arrow to expand the system tray, if you need to see all the icons. Look for an icon that usually resembles a set of stairs, or signal bars. Typically, there will be five bars. If all five are lit up, then you have very strong signal strength and should have no trouble getting online. Three to four bars should be a steady signal, without issues. However, if you have only two bars, then you probably drop connection a lot and the signal is not very useful when it's this low. You should look at ways to improve your signal strength. You will not get connected with only one bar.

There are other signal indicators available. Some are simply verbal indicators such as Very Low, Low, Moderate, High and Excellent. Others use a signal percentage from 0-100%. Obviously, the same rules apply. You want Moderate signal or better, or you want well above 50% signal strength. If your signal indicator measures the signal in actual voltage, or dBm, then you want -75dBm or better. In other words, -50dBm is excellent, but -90dBm is poor and probably won't connect.

Before you start, I recommend you read my article on WiFi Over-Population. It will give some insight into this particular chapter.

How Many Are There?

In North America, there are 11 Channels available within the 2.4GHz spectrum. However, in Europe, there are 14. Each Channel utilizes a radio spectrum width of 20MHz. Some advanced routers will allow you to customize these Channels to be as slim as 10MHz or as wide as 40MHz.

In North America Channels 1 through 11 utilize the spectrum from 2.412GHz to 2.462GHz. In Europe this goes all the way up to 2.484GHz. It would therefore, be advantageous for someone in North America to obtain drivers or firmware that allow them to use these higher channels, thereby avoiding interference from other routers.

Note: I'm not sure if utilizing Channels 12-14 in North America is legal or not, but I can't see that it would cause a problem or that anyone would care.

Overlap

Every Channel overlaps with several of the Channels beside it. The only Channels that are far enough apart not to overlap with each other are 1, 6 and 11. In other words, Channel 1 overlaps with Channels 2-5 and the same is true for every subsequent Channel. Understanding this concept is key in troubleshooting, because if you're experiencing problems due to an adjacent router, then moving one or two Channels away will accomplish nothing. You will need to move at least five Channels away in order to avoid any routers in the same part of the radio spectrum.

By default, routers will choose Channel 6. So, if you live in an area where there are several other Wireless routers in range, the best channels to use are likely 1 or 11. If those don't work, then you can try the intermediate Channels such as 3,4,8 or 9.

If you have a router that has an Auto Channel Scan feature, the router will dynamically adjust whenever it determines there is interference. If that doesn't work well or you don't have that feature, then you will have to manually pick the cleanest Channel you can find, through the process of elimination.

That's where programs like inSSIDer come in handy, because they let you visualize the radio signals, their strength due to proximity and the spectrum overlap, all in real-time. Let the software run for at least an hour before you do anything, so that it can capture enough data. At that point, you should be able to make an educated decision regarding what Channel(s) are the most advantageous to use.

When a Wireless signal does not work, people usually assume that distance is the only factor that can impact the signal. Of course, being too far from the router will cause the signal to degrade, but there are so many more things that can impact signal quality. Let's examine the common elements:

• distance
• heavily constructed buildings such as stone or concrete, lathe and plaster walls, steal beam construction
• walls, doors and floors
• metal buildings, such as sheds and warehouses
• large fishtanks
• large bodies of water
• flourescent tube lighting
• older appliances and electronic devices, such as console televisions, unshielded speakers
• large appliances such as washers, dryers, fridges, freezers
• microwaves
• other wireless devices, such as baby monitors, security cameras, wireless phones, neighbouring wireless routers
• cobras in UFO's

Wiring May Be Your Only Viable Option

Let's get this out of the way, immediately. If there are too many factors impacting your signal to the computer and you primarily use the computer as a stationary device, then running an Ethernet cable to your computer may be the best solution. A wired connection is of course, always more reliable and less complex to manage.

That's A Big List!

It certainly is, so let's break it down, in order to understand how these impact your signal:

Distance: The theoretical range of a router is usually based on an empty world concept. If you're standing in an open field, with no wind, no trees, perfect weather and you broadcast from a G router, you might be able to get 450'. Inside, you may be able to get a third of that. Realistically though, I've seen routers have problems reaching 50'. That's because distance combined with other factors that impact signal continually shrink the effective range. Typically, if a customer had a 2 storey home with a router located in their basement, they would not likely be able to reach the top floor with the wireless signal.

Buidling Construction Every door, wall and floor your signal has to pass through in order to reach it's destination cuts the signal by about 3dB. If you have heavy construction such as heavy wooden doors and furniture, concrete floors, stone walls or lathe and plaster walls, that will have even more significant impact on the signal. The problem is that lowering a signal by even 3dB effectively cuts the power in half. So, if you have too many physical obstacles to pass through, then the connection will eventually be impossible to reconcile.

Metal Building: In the early 1800's a scientist by the name of Michael Faraday constructed a cage, aptly called the Faraday Cage. Since your signal is essentially an electronic charge passing through the air, the metal shell of the building will cause the signal to reflect or redistribute it's charge across the surface, cancelling the signal's effectiveness on the other side. In other words, if you have a router inside or outside a metal structure, use an external antenna on the opposite side in order to ensure coverage on both sides of the building.

Water: Water has very strange dynamics, both due to its density, as well as it's reflective properties. If your router has to pass through a large, 20 or 50 gallon fishtank for example, a large portion of the signal may be absorbed. Bodies of water like rivers, lakes and ponds can have even more dramatic effects on signals, effectively scrambling or scattering the signal. I could spend hours explaining how this happens, but from a laymen's standpoint just know that if you live close to a body of water and you're trying to pass a signal across it, you will likely have problems.

Flourescents: There are many devices within a building that give off electronic noise, even if they are not tramitters by themselves. Flourescent lights are very noisy, in this regard. I'm not talking about the incadescent replacements that environmentalists are touting as a better alternative to the conventional light bulb. Those are not significant enough to have any impact. However, the large tube lighting with ballasts that you typically see in kitchens, offices and cafeterias, cause electrical interference across their entire surface area, which of course, can be fairly signficant. This will usually impact the signal if the lights are in the same room as the router or the computer, but not if they are in an adjacent room.

Large & Unshielded Appliances: Newer televisions tend to be shielded, but older televisions, such as floor model, console TV's, can cause interference. Fridges, stoves, washers, dryers, freezers, large speakers, especially if they are unshielded, all have an impact. Again, these devices are usually a factor only when they are in the same room as either the router tranmitting the signal or the device receiving it.

Microwaves: Did you know that microwaves and radio waves are very similar? The appliance you use to heat up those frozen dinners essentially uses radio signals to heat up your food. They have metal cases not because of heat distribution, but because of the Faraday cage concept that I mentioned earlier. The case is designed to keep microwaves from leaking out, which would pose significant health risks. However, even the newest, most expensive units will still let some signal escape and this can interfere with Wireless signals in close proximity. Definitely keep routers and computers in completely separate rooms from microwaves while they're operating.

Using this office as an example, we had a router mounted to the ceiling in the back room and a microwave that is 30' away from it. Whenever the microwave was used, signal quality was significantly impacted for everyone connecting to that router. It used to be bad enough to kick most people off the Internet, but we installed a router with a stronger radio and it now only causes some packet loss and speed degradation.

Other Wireless Devices: The common radio spectrum for devices such as cordless phones, baby monitors and security cameras are: 900Mhz, 2.4HGz, 5.8GHz and 6GHz. Wireless A and N routers use the 5GHz spectrum, so the devices in the 5.8GHz range may impact them. Wireless B, G and N routers use the the 2.4GHz spectrum, so devices in that range may impact them, as well. This is something to keep in mind when purchasing new devices for your home. If you already have these devices, you can usually find a sticker on the base or bottom of the component, which will indicate the frequency range on which they operate. Avoid conflicting signals as much as possible. Move cordless phones and their bases into rooms away from the routers and computers, or ensure they are on a spectrum well outside the frequency range of the router.

Cobras: Snakes mess everyting up and if they're alien snakes, then you're really in trouble.

This is one setting that is often overlooked. Proxy Servers have many purposes and most of them are legitimate, but of course anytime you have a legitimate use for something, someone will try to spoil that.

Malware (Spyware & Adware) or Viruses will often use the Proxy Servers on your computer to redirect you to their software hosted on your computer or a remote server that is being utilized for any number of nefarious deeds. This process is called browser hijacking. Of course, there are far more effective ways that Browser Hijackers can accomplish the same thing, but this is the easiest one to detect.

By the same token, Firewalls and Anti-Virus software will also often take over your Proxy Servers, but in an effort to protect you. Not surprisingly, this sometimes goes awry. When that happens, it's usually a simple matter of disabling the Proxy Servers in order to correct this problem.

From the Internet Options screen click on the Connections tab. At the bottom right of the window click LAN Settings. A new window will open. Make sure only Automatically detect settings is checked. Everything else should be unchecked. If you had to change any of these settings, click OK, OK and restart your browser. That's it.

The Internet Cache is a group of files and folders that browsers save on your computer as you visit different sites. This allows pages that you visit frequently to load faster. However, if your Internet Cache becomes too large, it can become cumbersome. So, cleaning this out regularly is a good idea.

Cookies on the other hand, are small files stored on your computer for the purpose of providing greater functionality to your Internet experience. The point is that Cookies are specifically created by site designers to be saved on your computer. These files will store things like your site preferences, information about your last visit and even login information. The challenge is that these sometimes get damaged, outdated or otherwise disfunctional. When that happens, a site that you previously visited might stop working properly. So, let's clear them, also.

You can clear the Cookies and other Temporary Internet Files (Cache) for Internet Explorer from the General tab of Internet Options.

Of course, Internet Explorer isn't the only player on the market and most people these days use more than one browser. Enter CCleaner. It's a great program for keeping your system optimized by clearing out common junk files. I recommend you run it weekly, or monthly, at the very least. It won't just discard junk files for one browser, but all of them, as well as Windows junk files and a lot more. Don't worry. It's very safe. I've used it for years and I've never had a problem with it erasing anything it shouldn't have. It's brainlessly easy, too. Run the program and click Run Cleaner in the bottom, right corner. That's it. You don't have to mess around with the settings unless you want to do so.

The fun comes with seeing how much space you will save the first time you run it. I've run it on peoples' computers for them and seen anywhere from 100MB's to over 7GB's of files being eliminated. You can bet that last computer saw a huge performance increase after it was done.

Look in the bottom right corner of your screen, at the clock. Is the time right? Does it say AM or PM? Make sure the date is right and the time is right. If your clock is off by even 1 hour, Secure Websites will often not work. It might be something to do with ensuring you're not in a different time-zone, hacking into a computer from the opposite sides of the world or something like that. To be honest, I don't really know and have yet to find a suitable answer. Regardless, you'll need to right-click it and adjust your date and time if they're incorrect.

If Your Computer Keeps Losing Time

If you keep losing time on your computer, then your CMOS battery is dying and you need to replace it. That's probably the only thing on a computer that anyone can replace, no matter how paranoid they are about opening the case. In 99% of all computers, the CMOS battery is a CR2032 that you can replace in under a minute. You turn off your computer, open the case, ground yourself by touching the power supply, locate the battery, pop it out and replace it with the new one. The battery usually has a little spring mechanism one side that will release it. Be careful, but don't be paranoid. They cost about $1 and are about the same size as an American real silver quarter. Actually, I bought a package of three CR2032's for $1 at the buck store not too long ago.

Not being able to open any links is not as common as being unable to open secure websites, but they are often related. So, rather than differentiate them, we're going to fix both at the same time. Yes, this is a bit of overkill, but it works, so don't knock it.

Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Notepad. Next, copy and paste all of these commands into Notepad:

regsvr32 mshtml.dll
regsvr32 mshtmled.dll
regsvr32 urlmon.dll
regsvr32 softpub.dll
regsvr32 wintrust.dll
regsvr32 initpki.dll
regsvr32 dssenh.dll
regsvr32 rsaenh.dll
regsvr32 gpkcsp.dll
regsvr32 sccbase.dll
regsvr32 slbcsp.dll
regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll

Save the file on your Desktop as FixIE.bat. Then, double-click the newly created icon on your Desktop. You're going to get a whole bunch of confirmation windows that DLLRegisterServer succeeded. Just press OK for each one. I haven't tried re-registering all of these files on every version of Windows since XP SP2, so I'm not sure if some of them may not work, but if it fixes your problem, then who cares, right? It's not going to hurt.

These steps are much simpler:

• First, get another Browser, if you don't already have a second one.
• Try the site(s) you're having problems with in the other browser(s).
• Do they work properly? If so, update or reinstall the browser that isn't working properly.

There is sometimes a less drastic option for Internet Explorer. Since version 8, Microsoft has offered Compatibility Mode. When you encounter a site that doesn't work quite right in Internet Explorer, look at the end of the address bar for the Compatibility View icon. It looks like a ripped piece of paper. If you see that icon, click it. Reload the page, or log out of the site and back in again. It may very well work for you now. Finally, something Microsoft did well.

Take the tinfoil hat off. You thought you were being safe, but you were just being paranoid. If you're unable to get to sites that you used to visit or you want to visit and you know you've changed settings in your browser, in an attempt to be safe, then you probably locked yourself down too well. In the Internet Options window click on the Security tab. If you're screen looks like this:

then you probably did this to yourself. So, press the button labeled Restore all zones to default level, then press Apply and OK.

This is what your screen should look like:

Customize the settings if you wish. Just don't change things that you don't really understand. Otherwise, you'll probably be back here a lot, until you've memorized how to undo your changes.

Personally, I think the default levels Medium-High are more than safe enough. You can always get programs like WOT (Web Of Trust) if you want an extra layer of security and advice.

Okay, Security settings are usually user error. In other words, "it was all your fault!" That's not necessarily the case with the Advanced Settings, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. We're going to do the same thing here though, restore.

Open Internet Options and click on the Advanced tab.

If you've locked yourself out of sites because of the Content Advisor, then Disable it or adjust the Settings. If you've forgotten the Password though, there's no way of getting it back.

There are however, ways of getting rid of it. Download and run the Content Advisor Password Remover from NirSoft and you can start over. Next time though, remember your Password.

So, if none of the fixes above worked or you can't even get that far because the browser crashes, then it's time for some heavy lifting. That was a metaphorical statement. Put that computer back down. You don't need to throw it out the window, but I'm sure you want to by now. Instead, let's repair the programs.

Reinstall

If you're using an after-market browser like Firefox or Chrome, then just reinstall it. Usually, reinstalling over top of the current installation is enough. Sometimes however, you might need to uninstall the old version, reboot and reinstall the new version.

Fix IE Utility

With Internet Explorer there are some alternatives before you go that far. First, we'll start with the Fix IE Utility. Download the program, run it and press Run Utility and then press Exit. Restart your browser when it's done and see if it worked. I've used it to help dozens of people repair their otherwise non-functioning Internet Explorer.

Dial-A-Fix

If even that didn't work, then there might be some damage to important Windows components. There's a few things we can do still. The first is to download and run Dial-A-Fix. It looks far more daunting than it is. It's also not designed for all versions of Windows, but don't worry. It won't damage anything. Once it's running click the double checkmarks at the bottom left of the screen to Select All and then press Go. Wait for the program to finish and then restart your computer. Hopefully, the problems you were experiencing are gone.

SFC /SCANNOW

Finally, there's an internal Windows command that people often overlook. You may need your Windows Install or System Restore disk handy in order for it to work successfully, though. Keep it on hand and if the program asks you for it, put the disk in your drive.

Begin by clicking Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt.

In the DOS window that opens up, type the following command and press Enter.

sfc /scannow

That program can take anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes to complete. Once it's done, you may need to reboot your PC, if it changed anything.

Reinstall Internet Explorer

If you've made it this far and Internet Explorer is still not working, you can now try reinstalling it. If it still doesn't work, it's time to take your computer to a technician. Sorry, but I tried.

MTU means Maximum Transmission Unit. In other words, it's the size of each package of data that is sent across the Internet from your computer to the ISP. So, whether you're sending a 10MB file or a 10KB e-mail, the information sent back and forth between you and your Service Provider will usually be the same size. This is not something you generally have control over or even have to worry about, unless something goes wrong.

Maximum of course, implies that packets can be smaller. Take a file that's 30,347 bytes in size, as an example. That's not an even number, so while the first 20 or so packets will be same size (1500 x 20 = 30,000), there will be some data left over. That last packet will be considerably smaller. This is an oversimplification of the process and somewhat erroneous, but it's enough to understand the basic concept.

The fact that you're reading this means that you've probably been directed here from one of the other connectivity troubleshooting pages. Either that, or your just curious about MTU. So, let's discuss the standards. The two most common values for MTU are 1500 and 1492. Cable Internet providers usually use 1500 and PPPoE (DSL) providers usually use 1492. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule.

The other method uses a program that does all the work for you. While this method takes longer, you can be sure of the results and have something to provide your IT department or ISP, if they ask.

Let's open up a DOS prompt again. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt.

When DOS opens, type the following command and hit Enter.

ping www.google.ca -f -l 1500

You will now get some results that typically look like this:

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.226.20] with 1500 bytes of data:
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for 74.125.226.20:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Don't panic. This doesn't mean that you don't have a connection. It means that your MTU size is not operating at 1500. So, we try another size. A general rule to follow is to decrease the value by 8 bytes at a time. Therefore, 1492 is next.

Note: DSL services and all providers utilizing PPPoE usually require an MTU of 1492 because they have a slightly larger overhead for managing their network; 8 bytes worth.

Retype the command, but this time use 1492. Keep going until you find results that look similar to the example below. I'll save you the time of messing with your calculator. The subsequent values are: 1484, 1476, 1468, 1460, 1452, 1444 and 1436. Stop there. If you haven't found a valid packet size by the time you reach 1436, something is probably amiss.

Note: If you're using a VPN, keep in mind that you will get different results from inside the VPN than you will when you're not using it. Make note of both values and let your IT department know what they are. It will help them diagnose the issue.

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.226.51] with 1460 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.226.51: bytes=1460 time=22ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.226.51: bytes=1460 time=22ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.226.51: bytes=1460 time=22ms TTL=58
Reply from 74.125.226.51: bytes=1460 time=21ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 74.125.226.51:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 21ms, Maximum = 22ms, Average = 21ms

As you can see in the example above, my MTU works at 1460, but at work, our connection uses 1468. Each provider is different. Ask your ISP what yours should be. A level 1 technician at your ISP won't likely know this answer, but most level 2 technicians will.

We're not quite done. Once you get a value that works without fragmentation, back up. It's like a game of hi-low. On my connection, 1460 was the highest value divisible by 8 that worked, but that isn't necessarily my exact MTU. So, now I'm going to roll back a bit. I try 1464 and it works, I try 1466 and it doesn't. So my highest possible MTU is 1464.

Why is it such an odd number? Well, the process of pinging actually creates some overhead itself, 28 bytes worth for the ICMP packet identifier and the header containing IP information. When you add that 28 bytes of data onto my results, we get an end value of 1492.

So, what good is this information? Well, I need to know what my MTUbold text should be in order to determine if this is a problem by itself. In my example, chances are pretty good that my MTU is fine. I can say that because I was able to find a valid packet size that did not result in broken data, without having to go to a ridiculously low number. In fact, because my adjusted MTU size is 1492, it is probably safe to assume that my MTU is configured properly. There are technicians that will likely cringe at those statements, but in practice it's true far more often than not.

If however, you get all the way down to 1436 and never find a valid packet size, then there might be something wrong. It's possible some software has adjusted your MTU or that you need to optimize your connection. Normally, this would require you to edit your Registry, but that's not a route through which I'm willing to guide you. Instead, we have a software solution available that will accomplish the same thing. So, continue on to the easy method.

People don't always understand the difference between their browser and their e-mail program. For some, e-mail is the only thing they will ever touch on the Internet, aside from the occasional animated greeting card from a family member. For others still, they've never opened an e-mail client and only ever access their e-mail through their browser, so they don't know the difference. That's why we need to clarify.

• Restart. I can't tell you how many times there have been quirky e-mail problems that just disappear after restarting either the e-mail program or the whole computer.

• Disable your Anti-Virus or Firewall. In almost every problem with e-mail, your Anti-Virus or Firewall could be blocking or slowing you down, even if it was working fine 5 minutes ago. You can go here to find out how to turn e-mail protection off, to test this theory. You might need to restart your e-mail program in order to make those changes take effect. Now, try your e-mail again. If the problem has gone away, you found the culprit. Wait for the next update to the offending software before re-enabling it. This is likely a temporary problem that they will find and fix in their next update. It's quite common.

• Retype your E-Mail Address. Unless you've been told otherwise, it's a good idea to use your full e-mail address for the Username. So, if your e-mail address is moc.erehwemos|bob#moc.erehwemos|bob and the login box appears with only bob in the Username field, then replace it with your whole e-mail address to see if it makes a difference.

• Retype the Password. If you get a login box, retype your Password, even if you haven't changed anything. This information occassionally gets lost or corrupted within Windows. So, it can't hurt. Passwords are always case-sensitive.

If none of those problems fixed your issue, then look at the solutions below. You might be able to find a more suitable solution.

It's possible you have an e-mail that's either too large and it's getting stuck while trying to download or there's an e-mail that's damaged on the server. Log into your Webmail service and move all of the e-mails from your Webmail Inbox to another folder. You might need to create a new folder before moving them, or you could use the Drafts folder. That's a common folder on most Webmail services, that rarely gets used.

Next, send yourself a test e-mail from the Webmail interface and wait a couple minutes for it to arrive. You probably have to refresh the Inbox to see it. Did it work? Did you receive it? If not, call your ISP. Your e-mail account may be damaged.

If it did work, then try moving some of those e-mails back, in groups of three or four at a time. After each group, update your e-mail program to get the new mail, usually by clicking Get Mail or Send/Receive. As each group successfully downloads, move a few more e-mails back until you find the specific e-mail that is the problem. Once you've narrowed it down, read that e-mail, if you can and Delete it.

If these steps didn't fix the issue, proceed to the Can't Send/Receive section.

The first question to ask is, are you at home? Relax, I'm not going to call you. The point is, you pay for Internet at your home, which is likely the e-mail address with which you're having difficulties. While e-mail is portable, it's not always a simple process. Let me explain. If you pay for Internet with company ABC and then go to work, where they pay for Internet with company XYZ and you try to send e-mail from your home e-mail account, it may not work. You can probably receive your e-mail without issue, but sending requires some adjustments. Thanks to SPAMmers, ISP's have had to tighten the restrictions of their e-mail service. What this means for you is that in order to send e-mail using your home e-mail account's Outgoing Server, when you're not actually online with them at that exact moment, you have to prove you are who you say you are by logging in, first. It sounds complicated, but it's not that bad. Here's what you'll likely need to do:

• In your e-mail program, open your Account Properties. Depending on what program you use, you'll need to find the place where the e-mail accounts are configured. Usually, there's a Tools menu and an Accounts/Account Settings option from which to choose.
• If asked whether to Add a new e-mail account or View or change existing e-mail accounts, we want to View or change existing e-mail accounts.
• If there are tabs along the top of E-Mail Accounts/Internet Accounts window that you opened, look for a Mail tab and click that. This is where we'll find all of the e-mail accounts that are setup in this program.
• Usually, you can just double-click an account to open it's Properties window. If you see an option that says More Settings… click on that.
• There's two settings we actually want to check or adjust. The first is Authentication. So, look for the Servers or Outgoing Servers tab and ensure that My server requires authentication is checked. If the option is presented to you, tell the program to use the same information as your Incoming Server.
• Now, let's go to the Advanced tab. Here you will see the Port settings for your Incoming and Outgoing Servers. For most ISP's the Outgoing Port (SMTP) defaults to 25. If it's not 25, then write down the Port number, in case you need to undo these changes. In order to make Outbound Authentication work, change this Port to 587. Apply the changes, close and reopen your e-mail program and try to send e-mail again.

For a quick reference, here's how the Outbound Authentication and SMTP Port screens look in Windows Live Mail:

Note: Do not change the settings for Requires Secure Password Authentication (SPA) or anything that mentions SSL. These sound similar but are not the settings you want to adjust.

What you've basically done is had your computer call your ISP and have a conversation that goes something like this, "Hey, I want to send this e-mail."
You ISP replied with, "Okay, you look familiar, but how do I know it's really you? Can you prove it? You're not calling me from where you normally do."
"Oh right, sorry about that. Here's my Username and my Password and we'll use the side door, which is reserved for travellers like me."
Your ISP smiles and lets you go about your business and everyone is happy. Oh frabjous day.

That's it! This should solve your problem, but if not, proceed to the Can't Send/Receive section, instead.

Don't overlook the obvious. Is there an e-mail outage? Check. If your provider has an outage page, check it. If they leave messages on their automated phone system, check that. Does any of your e-mail accounts with that same provider work on any of your other computers or devices? If not, then it's likely an outage. Wait it out for a while before calling your provider. It may recover quickly. Otherwise, let's continue.

If sending and receiving isn't working properly, we're not going to spend a lot of time messing around with settings. Chances are they're right and your e-mail account still won't work properly unless we Delete and Recreate it.

In the real world, things break and there isn't necessarily a known reason. Deal with it. You know those SSL errors you're getting and the 0x800 errors that have a paragraph of explanation as well as pages of troubleshooting on Microsoft's site? Well, we're probably going to ignore those, too.

That last statement probably just gave call center auditors a heart attack. Keep in mind though, that I'm not just speaking from personal experience, but also from the experience of all the teams I've managed through the years, as well. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of calls.

Just Fix It!

All a person is really interested in is getting their e-mail program working again and fast. So, that's what we're going to do. First, we'll give the e-mail settings a quick once over, retype the Password and try again. If that doesn't work, we're probably going to to just Delete and Rebuild the e-mail account.

Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail though, provide an extra challenge.

This particular part of the guide is going to be very high level, because it would be far too involved to cover the settings screens for every e-mail client. Instead, I'm going to tell you what to look for and how to find common mistakes.

Where Do I Find My Server Information?

The first thinng you need to know is your E-Mail Server Settings. If you don't know them, Google them. Our friend moc.erehwemos|bob#moc.erehwemos|bob for example, would search for "somewhere.com e-mail servers". The first link that appears will contain the information you're looking for 99% of the time.

The Steps

Those are the basics. Hopefully you now have a better understanding behind what you should use for your own e-mail settings. Now, just verify those settings inside your e-mail program.

• Usually you open Tools and then Accounts/Account Settings in order to gain access to the e-mail account properties.
• Find the account with which you're experiencing difficulties and view, change or edit the Properties of that e-mail account.

• If there are tabs, check each of them for relevant information as already discussed here. If you run into something we haven't discussed, then leave it alone.
• If there is a More Settings… button, you will need to click that to get to the rest of the relevant settings.

• Verify your E-Mail Address is spelled correctly. Don't use spaces, make sure the dots "." are actually dots and not commas.
• Retype your Password. Retype your Password. Retype your Password. In other words, even if you're sure you've got the correct Password, erase and retype it. Windows will frequently corrupt Password data, for no apparent reason. So, retype your Password.

• Verify your E-Mail Server names are correct. Again, look for typos.
• Make sure relevant security options like Outbound Authentication are only enabled if supported.
• Ensure you're using the correct Port numbers and encryption type if relevant.

• If you've made any changes to your account, Apply them, test the settings if there is a feature to do so, or by sending yourself a test e-mail and ensuring you can send and receive once again.

Once you've done all that, if you made any corrections, your e-mail is hopefully working now. If not, don't be too surprised. Like I said, in Windows, e-mail clients frequently corrupt e-mail settings for no apparent reason. You may have changed nothing and yet, your e-mail account suddenly stopped working. Don't blame your provider. They may not have done anything, either. It's very likely something gone astray within Windows. So, it's time to move on to the next section.

It's taken a long time to get here, but this is usually one of the fastest fixes for any broken e-mail. When taking someone through e-mail troubleshooting, I usually Rebuild their account about 2 minutes into the process and it fixes far more problems than it doesn't.

You May Need To Move Your E-Mails First

• This isn't relevant for IMAP e-mails, because those are already stored on the server. You only have to worry about this if you've setup your e-mail account as POP, which is the default for most e-mail services.

• As previously mentioned, if you use Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird, you need to first move the e-mails and folders you want to keep to another location. All Mac e-mail programs have been designed the same way. It's a silly design.

• Your e-mail program will have a Local Folders or Storage Folders section. In Windows Live Mail, you may have to click View and then click on Storage Folders in order to enable that location, first.

• Right-click on that heading and choose New Folder to create new folders within that section. Create as many as you need. Then, you can then drag & drop your e-mails their original locations to these new folders.

Let's Start Fresh

Okay, so you've either moved your e-mails that you wanted to keep to a different location, or you don't need to worry about it because you're using IMAP or an e-mail program that doesn't join the e-mails specifically to the account.

• If you haven't already found the Server Settings, you may need to call your ISP to obtain them.
• Open your Account Properties, locate the correct account and Delete it. Make sure you're removing the right account.
• Now, just Recreate it, entering all of the necessary information, including:
  • E-mail Address
  • your Username, which is usually just your E-mail Address
  • the Password
  • the Incoming and Outgoing Server names
  • You may also need to enable SSL, Outbound Authentication and adjust Port numbers, depending on your provider.

Save the settings and check the e-mail account by sending yourself a test e-mail. If it sends and receives now, then you've solved the problem. Rebuilding the account will fix e-mail problems more than 90% of the time.

If it didn't, then keep reading.

If you've made it this far and you're still not having any success it's quite possible something is corrupted. There are too many possibilities of what could be wrong and why, but depending on the specific issue here's an idea of what you might have to do next:

• Outlook has a couple hidden utilities: ScanPST and ScanOST to repair e-mail data files.
• Recently, they also released their Oversized PST & OST Crop Tool.
• Outlook also has a self-diagnostic tool. In older versions you would click on Help and then Detect & Repair… I'll discuss newer versions later.

• For Outlook Express you sometimes have to move everything from your Inbox or Outbox and then Delete the Inbox.dbx or Outbox.dbx files and restart the program. Other e-mail programs often recommend similar steps in order to recover from e-mail problems.

Start Googling Again

This would be one of those rare cases where you would actually want to refer to those 0x800 codes. Search Google for 2 or 3 recommendations about how to resolve your exact issue. Never rely on just one. Also, you can use www.0x800CCC.com to find specific solutions.

If you can't find a Detect & Repair… feature in Outlook or an Office Diagnostics tool in the Start Menu, under All Programs and probably Microsoft Office, then you will have to go to the Control Panel and run it from there.

• In XP you would go to Add/Remove Programs and run the Uninstall for Microsoft Outlook/Office.
• In Vista and beyond, you open Programs & Features and do the same.

Of course, you're not actually going to uninstall Outlook, but when you run the Uninstall program, it will ask you if you want to Uninstall, Repair or Reinstall the software. You will choose either Repair or Reinstall. Reboot once it's done and test your e-mail once again by sending and receiving a test e-mail.

For all other e-mail programs, you can probably just download the latest version and Reinstall the software over top of the current installation. This often fixes the problem. It's usually a good idea to reboot after you've done that, before sending and receiving another test e-mail.

If none of this has worked, you should call your ISP or maybe even a technician.

We expect e-mail to work instantaneously. Of course, that's not always the reality. Here's a few things that may help solve or workaround the issue.

Back Up A Minute

By now, you would have already turned off your Anti-Virus or Firewall software to see if that fixed the problem, right? If not, then go back to the Things To Try Every Time before continuing.

Check Your Outbox

Since that didn't work, let's make sure there isn't a problem e-mail in your Outbox. Move everything from your e-mail program's Outbox to the Drafts folder temporarily and send yourself a simple test message. If the test e-mail works fast, then move the other e-mails back one by one until you figure out which one is problematic. Delete and Recreate that e-mail.

Server TimeOuts

If you keep getting timeout errors, then your ISP is probably having server issues. If this happens frequently, then this workaround will eliminate the errors, but not the delays. We're going to change the Server Timeouts in your e-mail program. Open the Account Properties and in the Advanced section you should find a Server Timeouts option. Slide that up to two or three minutes and Apply the settings.

Microsoft Outlook Seems To Have A Problem

If your e-mail program freezes completely when trying to Send/Receive, you're likely using Outlook. Sorry, but Microsoft seems to have some real problems with handling e-mail. Yes, you read that correctly. If you're using Outlook 2007 or later, Outlook is known to freeze solid when checking e-mail. Complain to Microsoft and maybe they'll fix it, eventually. No other e-mail program seems to completely lock up the same way.

Is there a viable solution? Unfortunately, no. Replace Outlook with something else if it's really bad. Older versions of Outlook don't seem to suffer from this problem and neither do any other e-mail clients, including other Microsoft products. So, it's something new they've done that causes the problem. I'm sorry if you were expecting a better solution than me pointing an accusing finger at the software developers, but in this case, it's well deserved. If you don't believe me, then Google search for "Outlook 2003 freezes" and you get about 400,000 results, but for Outlook 2007 that jumps to 1.8 million and for 2010 it's over 4 million hits. Sure, this could be because older links are being deleted from the Internet over time, but Outlook 2007 isn't that old and it has less than half the hits. I think it more likely that the problem is getting worse. I've seen it in action hundreds of times and as of August, 2011 I'm convinced Outlook needs some work to fix the problem.

Know Your Options

If all else fails, call your ISP. E-Mail can be a very problematic service to maintain. So, unless you're dealing with a national ISP, who has dozens or hundreds of redundant servers, then it may be continually problematic for you. You can of course, use GMail or HoTMaiL accounts, which are extremely stable and powerful. It depends on whether or not e-mail is mission critical for you. GMail is known for being particularly easy to setup for personal domains. So, if I wanted to, I could setup my own Schvenn.net e-mail addresses to be hosted on GMail's servers. That may not be the direction you wish to go, but it's good to know your options.

Here's the scenario: you check your e-mail and get five new messages. The server gets to number three and stops, or it takes forever to download the next e-mail, but then fails. So, you check your e-mail again only to see that the first three e-mails download all over again. This happens repeatedly, so that you eventually have several copies of the first few e-mails and the e-mail program never does download those last messages that it indicates are on the server. Frustrating, isn't it?

Typically, this happens only with Dial-Up connections. However, it can happen with high speed connections if you have a lot of packet loss, which is slowing your connection down tremendously, or if the e-mail that your program is getting stuck on is extremely large.

You see, your e-mail program treats downloading e-mail from your account as a single action. It doesn't matter if there are 20 e-mails on the server or 200. So, if the program is only able to download a portion of them, then it considers the whole process a failure. This is because the e-mail program doesn't send the Delete or Mark E-Mails Read commands until after everything has been downloaded.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein

What we need to do is figure out what e-mail is causing the problem and eliminate it. Of course, you're not going to be able to do that using the e-mail program. Instead, it's time to log into Webmail. Chances are that the e-mail in question is chronologically next to the last one that downloaded to your computer. It will also likely be the e-mail that has the largest attachment. Most Webmail programs will let you sort results by clicking on the column headers. Click on the column header for Size and look for the e-mail with a large attachment.

On Dial-Up connections, anything over 1MB typically fails when downloading through e-mail. For high speed connections, the file size is probably significantly larger than that, like 15+MB or more. Read that e-mail through the Webmail interface and Move it to a new folder or Delete it. Once you've eliminate the likely culprit(s) from your Inbox, logout and try to get your mail through your e-mail program again. It should work now.

If there are no e-mails with large attachments, then you may simply have a corrupt e-mail. It doesn't mean you or your ISP did anything wrong. Sometimes an e-mail may just get damaged in transmission. Either way, you'll have to use some investigative process to figure out which one is the problem and remove it.

If you're still not having any success, call your ISP.

This is an easier fix than you might expect. You probably have a forward setup or a second copy of the e-mail setup in your e-mail client. Let's cover one at a time.

Duplicate E-Mail Account Setup

First, if you use an e-mail program like Outlook or Windows Live Mail, then you might have an e-mail account setup twice, even if it was unintentional. We'll need to check. So, start by opening the e-mail program. Depending on what program you use, you'll need to find the place where the e-mail accounts are configured. Usually, there's a Tools menu and an Accounts/Account Settings option from which to choose.

If asked whether to Add a new e-mail account or View or change existing e-mail accounts, we want to View or change existing e-mail accounts. If there are tabs along the top of E-Mail Accounts/Internet Accounts window that you opened, look for a Mail tab and click that. This is where we'll find all of the e-mail accounts that are setup in this program.

If there is only one e-mail account listed, then this is not the problem, so skip to the next section. Otherwise, we're going to need to check each of the e-mail accounts setup. Usually, you can just double-click an account to open it's Properties window. Once you're in there, the login information is the important part. Just because the e-mail address may say one thing, like moc.erehwemos|bob#moc.erehwemos|bob, doesn't mean that's the actual account it's checking. Depending on the e-mail program, you're looking either for the Servers tab or for the section that has the Username and Password. Whatever Username that is, for example: mary or moc.erehwemos|yram#moc.erehwemos|yram, then you've found the actual account that is being checked. In the example I've just provided, the account looks like it's checking moc.erehwemos|bob#moc.erehwemos|bob, but when we saw the user information, you're really checking Mary's account.

Here's a few examples of how that would look inside an e-mail program:

Between those three examples, you should be able to find the fields best resemble your e-mail program.

E-Mail Forward Setup

This one is going to be tougher to explain, because I can't give you as many visuals to show you what to expect. The first questions is, do you have another e-mail account? If not, then this is not the solution to your problem. You will likely need to call your ISP for assistance, instead.

If you do have more than one e-mail account, then have you ever set it up to receive e-mails from another account? I can't answer that for you. You need to know this answer. Quite often, people will Forward their work e-mails to their personal e-mails while on vacation. Did you do that, at some point? If so, did you remember to turn it off when you got back?

Do you see the line of thought here? If you've setup an e-mail to Forward a copy to another address and you have both of those addresses setup on the same computer, then you will get two copies of that e-mail; one from the original account and one from the Forwarded copy. You will have to check the Forwarding options in each of your e-mail accounts to see if that's the case.

Log Into Your Webmail

If you don't know how to setup a Forward or have never done it, then this is not likely the problem. However, if you have set one up or had your ISP set one up for you, then let's check the settings. For most ISP's you will have Webmail access that's usually located at http://webmail.YourISP.com. In other words, if your e-mail address is moc.erehwemos|bob#moc.erehwemos|bob, then your Webmail site would most likely be located at http://webmail.somewhere.com.

Once in there, you're looking for Settings/Options. Somewhere in there you will find Forwarding options. See if there's anything saved there already and determine whether or not it's going to create duplicate e-mails. If so, remove the Forward and Save the settings. How you specifically do that I cannot tell you. It depends on your Webmail interface, but it should be pretty intuitive. If you need help of course, call your ISP.

For example, Mary is receiving two copies of every e-mail. She checks her work e-mail account settings and sees that she's Forwarding all of her work e-mails to her home account. Her home PC is setup to download both her work and her home e-mail. So, she's inadvertently sent herself two copies of every e-mail. By logging into her work Webmail service she finds this out, because her work Webmail has a Forward setup to send everything to her home address. She erases that setting, Saves the changes and she's done! No more duplicate e-mails.

These images aren't terribly useful, unless you specifically setup a Forward for your HoTMaiL/GMail accounts, but just to give you an idea of what a Forwarding screen would look like, here's a couple examples:

I hope this helps.

If you get an error number when the computer tries to connect, what is the error number?

If it's 691, wrong Username and/or Password, then make sure you've typed them correctly or call your ISP. They may have a problem, or your account may be suspended for Billing reasons, or you more than likely forgot your Username and Password.

If it's 769, then proceed to Error 769 troubleshooting, because I've dedicated a whole page to that.

If it's 718, then you likely have to call your ISP. They might have an issue causing that.

Errors 678 or 815 are too broad to help us much, so keep going with the steps below. Think of them as the Windows "catch all" for "something isn't working very well".

If you can surf, but can't e-mail, then it's probably an E-Mail issue.

If you can't surf either, then it's likely a connection issue. Now, let's qualify the type of connection issue.

Can you get to any webpages or is it just one that's the problem?

If it's just one, then try that site in another browser. You can get different browsers from here: browsers. If it is just that browser that you have difficulties with, then it might just be a problem with the browser you're using. So, you should probably do some Browser troubleshooting.

If the problem exists in all browsers, then there might be a problem with the site. You can also use www.DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com to verify whether or not the site is working. If the site is up, but you can't reach it, then you might have an MTU issue.

If you can't get to any sites, then your problem is a connection issue. So, let's go deeper. Continue reading.

First, reboot your modem and your router, if you have one, by unplugging the power to them for 30 seconds. Also, reboot your power inserter, if you have one. I explain what that is below.

The modem is what was provided to you (or that you bought on your own) from your ISP (Internet Service Provider). It usually has 5 or more lights on it.

Okay, so you've rebooted everything, the modem has synchronization, the router is back up. Let's wait 60 seconds.

~*~ whistling ~*~

Okay, now your router should have reconnected if your modem is actually allowing a connection. Let's proceed.

Check your connection. Are you back online? If not, let's go to the next step.

By this point in the process you've already determined that your modem has synchronization, in other words, it's connected to your ISP and is communicating properly.

Did you pay your bill? No joke. If you use a credit card and it's expired recently or there's a possibility you're behind, call your ISP.
Your modem will have synchronization, but you won't likely be able to get online.

Okay, so let's try to browse again. Still not working? Keep going. We'll figure this out.

At this point, if you are using a router then proceed to Router troubleshooting.

First, let's open the Control Panel. You'll either click Start and then Control Panel, or you'll need to click Start, Settings and then Control Panel.

This is where you will look for your actual Network Adapter. You may have a few in here. If there are old one's that you don't use anymore like Dial-Up connections, you can right-click and Delete them, but only remove them if you're sure. You might see any or multiples of the following:

• Broadband Connection WAN Miniport (PPPoE)
• Local Area Connection
• Wireless Network Connection
• 1394 Connection

Look for the Wireless Network Connection or Local Area Connection that represents your connection, right-click on it and choose Disable. Wait 10 seconds, then right-click it and choose Enable. If you don't know which one is the connection you use, Disable and then Enable each of them. It won't hurt. Once you're done, test your connection.

PPPoE Connections

If you do have a Broadband Connection or one that is labeled WAN Miniport (PPPoE), you should double-click that icon now in order to reconnect to the Internet. If a connection window appears, press the Connect button. If you receive error 769 or 691, address those errors before continuing.

I'm going to assume that connection is there because it's supposed to be and that it's not from a prior ISP connection that you never removed. Otherwise, you should right-click the icon and Delete it. If it's from a previous ISP it will either have an obvious name, or when you opened the connection window a minute ago, the Username that showed up was one you would hopefully recognize as being something that you no longer use.

If this connection is from your current ISP, make sure it is your default. There should be a checkmark on the icon, if it is. You can also tell by right-clicking on it and reading the menu that appears. If the option that is available says Cancel as Default Connection, then it's configured properly. Don't select that option. If however, you see an menu item to Set as Default Connection, then you should select that. This will ensure that this PPPoE connection will activate whenever you need to access the Internet and are not already online.

Here's what the right-click menu should look like on a PPPoE connection that is properly configured:

Note: You may have just created a PPPoE connection because you were bypassing your router. You will only leave it there while troubleshooting. Once you get your router working again, you should delete the PPPoE connection, because the router is supposed to be managing your connection. Having a computer behind the router trying to manage the connection as well, will cause intermittent connections, speed issues and similar problems. To remove it, first Disable your Local Area Connection(s), then right-click the PPPoE connection and select Delete. Confirm that you want to do so. Then, Enable the Local Area Connection(s) again.

Once you're done, test your connection again.

We're going to check the Network Card to see if it's working properly. There's a setting or two we can adjust and we may even reinstall the drivers.

Warning: Please read this entire section through before proceeding. There's a miniscule chance that this won't work and you may need drivers disks before you start. Personally, I've never seen that be the case, at least not since Windows XP came on the scene, but I thought I better mention it.

To start, right-click on Computer or My Computer and click Properties. You will find this icon on your Desktop or in your Start menu.

If you can't find that, then you can also go to the Control Panel, in Classic View and double-click on System.

Once you're in System Properties, you need to locate the Device Manager. In Windows XP you will need to click the Hardware tab and then press the Device Manager button. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 you will simply click Device Manager in the top left hand side of the window.

This will open a new window. After the list populates you will be able to see drivers for all of the components installed on your computer, listed alphabetically and sorted into many categories. Look for your Network Adapters and if there is a plus sign or right arrow on the left of Network Adapters, click it, in order to open up that category.

Wait! You don't see a category called Network Adapters? Well, that means your network card has either been uninstalled, or it has failed. You may need to take the computer to a technician. If you don't see the adapter listed as an Unknown devices or Other devices as mentioned below, then it's just not on your system anymore. This is most likely because it stopped working and Windows has removed it, as a result. You could try reinstalling it, if you know where your drivers disk is. Otherwise, start calling your technician.

Note: If you have one of those Network cards that won't work with the list of drivers built into the Windows library, then you need to look for a disk containing one of the following: your Motherboard or System Drivers, System Restore, System Repair or Network Card Drivers. I can't tell you what disk it will actually be. You'll have to figure that out on your own, but I can tell you that if there are Network drivers on the disk, you can usually put the disk in your CD/DVD drive and when the AutoRun program opens up, there will usually be an option specifically to install System or Network Drivers. Don't be surprised though, if you find the Network drivers disk, reinstall the drivers and it still doesn't work. There was likely a good reason Windows disabled them in the first place. So again, start calling your technician.

Otherwise, there are 4 states which a device can appear inside the Device Manager. If it's working, the icon will simply look like an picture of the type of device that driver represents.

If it's disabled, there will be a red X on it. Simply right-click the device and choose enable to turn it back on.

If it's not working, there may be a yellow exclamation mark ! indicating a problem state. If this is the case, then when you get to the Network Adapters category in the Device Manager, the symbol beside the category heading is usually a minus sign instead of a plus sign, or a down arrow, instead of a right arrow. This is because Windows is trying to point out to you that there's something wrong with the device, so it expands the category, right away.

It can also have a yellow question mark ? representing the fact that Windows is unsure about the device. Perhaps it has the wrong or no drivers installed. If the device has a ? it's also not usually listed in it's proper category. For example, a Network Adapter that is unknown will usually show up in the category Unknown devices or Other devices, rather than Network Adapters.

This is the part I warned you about earlier.

If you reached this point in the troubleshooting, there's a very good chance this driver, even if it indicates it's functioning properly, is somehow broken. So, we're going to use a little Windows trick that has proven effective many thousands of times. We're going to right-click the appropriate Network Adapter and choose Uninstall. This will remove the device. If Windows prompts you to delete the drivers, you do not want to do that. I repeat, do not delete the drivers. As soon as Windows has removed the device, the list flashes and updates a couple times and the device is gone.

You're now going to click on Action at the top of the window and choose Scan for hardware changes. This will reinstall the driver we just removed and 99% of the time, it will fix whatever was broken. Don't touch anything. Just let Windows go through it's process, unhindered. If all is well, it will give you a message once it's done that your device is installed.

There are two cases in which this process will not work. The first, is if the Network Adapter is physically damaged. In other words, it's unrepairable. When that is the case, Windows will often force you to answer it's question. It will want to know if it should go online to find the drivers or if you have drivers that it should search to find the appropriate one. This will happen when a device is broken because Windows recognizes that something isn't quite right and it's assuming the drivers are the problem. If that is the case, you will likely need to take your computer to a technician.

The other time that Windows won't reinstall the device on its own is when you have nVidia drivers. I've heard tell that nVidia and a few other brands of drivers will not reinstall automatically, despite the drivers already being there. If this is the case, you may need to insert the drivers disk that came with the computer or the Network Adapter, if you purchased it after-market, in order to reinstall the drivers. Personally, I've fixed literally thousands of Internet connections by simply "refreshing" the drivers this way within Windows and I've never seen this phenomena wherein you need the drivers disk, unless they were physically damaged, but it's worth mentioning.

Once the drivers have been reinstalled, try a web page again. You should be back online.

If you're still not able to surf, then we're going to have to try something even lower level in the terms of a connection than browsing: Pinging.

Before we do that…

While we're still in the Device Manager, there's a couple settings I want to point out. If your connection is intermittent only on one computer, or erratic, there may be a couple reasons for it. The first is a bad Ethernet cable or even a failing Network card. The second reason may be a software problem within Windows. So, there's some workarounds that may help compensate for these issues. Let's take a look at both.

Click Start, All Programs, Accessories. Now look for either Command Prompt or MS-DOS Prompt, but don't do anything just yet!
Okay, so you found that icon. If you're using Windows XP you can just click that icon.

If you're using Windows Vista or Windows 7, do the following:

• Roll your mouse over it and right-click.
• Choose Run as Administrator and left-click.
• If you get a prompt from Windows to continue, then approve the action and proceed.

This will open a black DOS window. This is what computers used before Windows. Click on the window with your mouse and start typing. Don't worry about where, the program will only let you type in one spot, anyway. Type the following command:

ping google.ca -n 20

Hit Enter after that and wait. If you get errors, such as Host Unreachable then you can't even ping by URL, so let's try something else. Let's modify that command and type it like this:

ping 74.125.95.104 -n 20

Hopefully, you'll get something like this from one of those commands:

Pinging google.ca [74.125.95.104] with 32 bytes of data:
 
Reply from 74.125.95.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=54
Reply from 74.125.95.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=54
Reply from 74.125.95.104: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=54
Reply from 74.125.95.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=54
 
Ping statistics for 74.125.95.104:
   Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
   Minimum = 40ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 40ms

What you do next depends on the results you received:

• If you get no successful results, or an error that says something like Host Unreachable, then contact your ISP and let them know what you've already done. Give them the link to this troubleshooting guide, if you want.

• Now, if you do get some successful responses, but get anything over 5% loss, contact your ISP. You might have a connection problem. It could also be a bad Ethernet cable or something similar, but I'll let them help you determine that, at this point.

• Finally, if you get responses from either command and have less than 5% loss then you are online, but you've got an issue within Windows. No worries, it's easy to fix, so keep reading.

If you got responses, but can't surf, then it's most likely a computer issue. So, there's a few things to check. We'll go with the simplest solution first. Go to Browser troubleshooting and make sure you don't have a Proxy Server turned on. If that didn't fix the problem, then make sure to come back here to finish up this last bit of troubleshooting.

Go back to that black DOS window we opened earlier and type the following 3 commands, hitting Enter after each one:

ipconfig /flushdns
netsh int ip reset log.txt
netsh winsock reset catalog

After the last command it will tell you to reboot your PC. Close the DOS window by typing exit and hitting Enter. Then click on Start, tell your computer to Shutdown and Restart. Once you're back up and running again, check your connection. Hopefully you're back online and can surf, finally. If not, then call your ISP.

I hope this helps!