Troubleshooting Internet issues

A lot of Small businesses that we work with have regular Internet problems, which is often why they call The PC Support Group.  Either their previous one-man-band did not solve the problem or they couldn't get a fast response from them to solve the problem.

The PC Support Group have a team of experts waiting to solve problems just like this.  But suppose you want to solve the problem yourself, where do you start?

1. Do you have a network connection? 
• Press Windows-R then type cmd
• type ipconfig
• Look through the list for "Default Gateway" - note the value (e.g. 192.168.1.1)  
• If there is no value or if your IPv4 address begins 169.x.x.x then you are not properly connected to the network.
2. Can you reach the Internet gateway?
• Press Windows-R then type cmd
• type ping -t defaultgateway (defaultgateway is the value noted above e.g. 192.168.1.1)
• A good result is: Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
• If you get any other result then you cannot contact the router.  Sometimes rebooting the broadband router, or rebooting the computer can solve this.
3. If you can reach the Internet gateway but cannot get to the Internet then the problem could be the Internet service, or the Domain Naming service (DNS).
• Press Windows-R then type cmd 
• type ping -t 8.8.8.8
• A good result is: Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=64
• The time is not so important but it should be less than 100ms and if you watch it for about 30 seconds you shouldn't see any "no replies".  No replies, or times of greater than 100ms mean you have a poor Internet connection.
• Connect to the broadband router through a cable instead of by wireless to confirm it is not a WiFi problem and see if the previous results improve.
• If the results look good but the Internet will still not work reliably then it could be a DNS problem
4. You can diagnose a DNS problem by pinging an IP address without problem, but being unable to ping a domain name.
• Press Windows-R then type cmd
• type ping -t www.google.com
• A good result is: Pinging www.l.google.com [173.194.66.104] with 32 bytes of data:
  Reply from 173.194.66.104: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=46
• Any other result indicates a DNS problem
• Change the DNS server you use by typing:
• netsh interface ip set dns "Local Area Connection" static 8.8.8.8
• The above will change the DNS server on the wired connection and set it to google's public DNS server.

The above steps are just some general tests to perform for troubleshooting your internet connection.  This may not resolve your problem and there may be slight differences in your set up which require slight changes.  For help with any of the above please contact us at The PC Support Group or on +44 (0) 845 2233116