Help I can’t connect to the Internet

Schaumburg Computer Repair Service gets many phone calls from people saying that a family member set up their wireless connections and now it won’t work. Here are the following steps to trouble shoot your wireless router.

Schaumburg Computer Repair service will first walk into your home and perform a short wireless survey to see which wireless networks are in the area. Next we will see what wireless network your home computers are trying to connect to. If we see that your default wireless network is Linksys we will recommend that the SSID be changed . Linksys is the default name on all Linksys routers. This could make your computers connect to your neighbors wireless network.

If you wireless clients appear to be setup correctly we will begin trouble shooting your wireless network. Usually clients will say that they are unable to connect to the internet. So if the clients are connecting to the wireless router fine we will check the wired ethernet connections going from the wireless router to the cable or DSL modem. If the connections appear fine I will still reseat the ethernet cords because they might be loose. Next step is to restart your wireless router. Home wireless routers will have to be restarted once in awhile because the firmware will freeze up. So you will want to pull the power cord from the router, wait about 10 seconds and plug it back in. This will solve about 90% of the problems. Next if that doesn’t work you will want to restart the modem the same way.

Now go to your wireless laptop or wireless desktop and click on the start menu. Next click on the run box and type cmd. This will bring up the command prompt, now type in ipconfig/all. This will list all of your ip address information. You should have an ip address of something like 192.168.1.2 through 254. If you do, then great that means that you should be able to get to the internet now. If you receive an ip address of 169.0.0.0 then you are not getting an ip address from your wireless router’s dhcp server which assigns IP addresses. Now at the command promt type ipconfig/release ( this will release your IP address). Now type at the command prompt ipconfig/renew, this will pull a new IP address from your wireless router.

So before you call in a repair service first restart your client computer. Next check all your ethernet connections going to and from your wireless router. Then restart your wireless router and cable modem. Finally, restart your wireless computers one more time or try the command line commands listed above.

Wireless Home Networking: 20 Things Not to Do When Setting up Your Wireless Network

1. Do not name your SSID your last name or first name

2. Do not have your pass phrase your last name of first name

3. Don’t leave your wireless channel at six, change it to 1 or 11

4. Don’t leave your wireless network open enable some sort of encryption

5. Place your wireless router in the middle of your home not next to a wall

6. Don’t place your wireless router next to large heavy objects

7. Configure your laptop not to automatically connect to a wireless networks named “linksys“

8. Don’t leave your passphase the same and change it every couple months

9. Don’t use only WEP encryption, enable WPA2 and your wireless network will be a lot safer.

10. Don’t use AES wireless encryption for wireless gamming it does slow your network down.

11. Don’t start configuring your wireless network until you have upgraded your wireless router firmware

12. Don’t purchase anything but wireless MIMO routers for home networks, MIMO routers will give you better coverage.

13. Don’t leave your transmit power at the default transmission level. If you need a strong signal turn it up, if you don’t turn it down to the minimum

14. Don’t place your wireless router in the lowest spot in your house. Place it as high as possible to give you the best coverage.

15. Don’t have your wireless antennas pointed in the wrong direction. Meaning your signal does not emit from the points, they emit from the sides.

16. Don’t expect to achieve those 108 mbps speeds that are advertised with MIMO routers….those speeds only are achieved under super ideal circumstances.

17. Don’t upgrade your wireless routers firmware over a wireless connection

18. Don’t upgrade your wireless routers firmware until you have reset your options to the defaults

19. Don’t confuse an access point for a wireless router. Wireless routers act as a firewall, access points do not.

20. Enable some sort of security on your wireless router, if you don’t you will be sorry