Most of our clients occasionally lose their connection to the Internet. Most of the time, the loss of connection follows a power surge or break, and the modem loses its connection.
Disconnect power to the modem. The modem is the equipment that your Internet provider gave you that connects either to a phone line or a cable line. Turn it off for one full minute, then turn it back on. It is usually recommended that you also power down your computer. When you power back on the modem, watch its lights. Do the lights come on? If there is a light for Internet or WLAN, is it blinking or is it solid. Usually a solid Internet light indicates a connection to the Internet. If you have a router attached to your modem, also power it down.
Power on the computer to see if there is a connection. If there is not a connection on one workstation, then try a second workstation
Power on the computer to see if there is a connection. If there is not a connection on one workstation, then try a second workstation
We recommend that you keep information attached to your modem, providing the phone number of technical support of your internet provider, your phone line number, your customer name /user name, password, and the modem model number. Call Technical support, and say that you have lost Internet connection. They can usually quickly determine if they have an actual connection to your MODEM, and may help you connect.
If you are using the personal firewall that is part of your virus protection package, it may block your connection. When the protection package does a major update, it may change the settings of your personal firewall. This happens to our clients with some frequency. You may test this by going into your virus protection program, temporarily turn off the personal firewall, and attempt to connect to the Internet. To be safe, you may turn on the Windows firewall, which can be done in Control Panel.
You have downloaded malware (virus, Trojan, spyware)
An infected computer may lose access to the Internet. If this happens one workstation may not work, but others remain connected. DO NOT DOWNLOAD protection software that is suggested in a pop-up window. This is most likely spyware and will make a bad situation worse. You may need professional support to fix this problem. A system restore to a previous date may solve this problem
Broken Modem/Router/Switch/Network line
JW Computer Systems can bring replacement routers or switches to check such problems. If taking the steps above does not fix the problem,
