Your Internet connection seems slow, does it jerk, “collapse” at any moment or is it unstable? The problem may be in the router! Before contacting your ISP and asking for explanations for poorly performing or unstable connectivity, we recommend some simple diagnostic tests to do at home.
Let’s start with the basics: the router hardware. The easiest way to understand if the router is not working properly is to take a look at the LED lights located on the front panel. Each device has a variable number and with different indications, but all have three fixed ones:
- Il Power LED, which tells you if the modem is on and plugged in. If the light is off, the modem is not on: try to check the power cords and house sockets!
- Il ADSL or Fiber connection LED, which indicates whether the modem is connected to the external telephone exchange. If the light is on and fixed all is well; if it flashes or is off, however, there is a problem.
- Il Internet line LED, which instead checks if the modem is able to connect to the internet. If the light is on and fixed you are on horseback, otherwise you should straighten your antennas.
In case of problems with the ADSL or Fiber connection LED and the Internet line LED, the first thing to do (after turning the router off and on again; it is a trivial advice but one that often works) is to check the modem connection cables, detaching them from both the device and the socket and reinserting them. If you use ADSL filters, the advice is to remove them too.
If the problem persists, the best thing to do is check wired and wireless connections outgoing from the modem. If you only use wireless devices and have a PC with an Ethernet port (or an adapter), try connecting via cable to the router, testing multiple LAN ports: if the Wi-Fi doesn’t work but the Ethernet cable does, the problem lies in the Wifi connection. If the problem persists even with the wired connection, however, we have to do one step following.
Let’s stop for a moment Wi-Fi connection problems: to solve them, the best thing to do is to restart and update the modem (while you do this, remember to set a password! It will protect your home network and connected devices). Subsequently, you can also check which of the two bands (or three, depending on the device you have) is less crowded: in this case, switch from 2.4GHz to 5GHz (or vice versa) in the case of very crowded networks it could provide you with a more stable and responsive connection.
Once all these possibilities have been exhausted, it is very unlikely that the problem lies “at home”: if you still cannot connect to the web, your internet network provider could be to blame. In this case, more often than not, the only solution is to wait patiently Have your ISP fix your connection problems. While you wait (or even periodically, to check the status of your connection) you can run at least a couple of tests:
- The first is the classic internet network speed testavailable through platforms such as Speedtest.net and Google Speed Test. Often, the management page of your modem also indicates the upload and download speeds of your connection: if the latter are much lower than those theoretically promised by your contract , you may wish to contact your ISP and ask for an explanation.
- The second is theaccess to the modem event log, which you should always be able to see on the device management page. The latter is a precious ally in case of malfunctions because, if interpreted correctly, it can tell you specifically what is wrong. Scan the log looking for “strange” or error messages, especially when connection problems start. Once you have found them, try and do a web search and check which solutions are recommended for you on a case-by-case basis: unfortunately, doing a log error list is almost impossiblegiven their extremely large number.
- The third (and last) is the DNS infrastructure testwhich allows you to understand “on the fly” if your connection problem depends on the Domain Name System of your ISP. In this case it is possible to do very little, except to change the DNS servers used to surf the net: however, if you are not an expert user, we strongly advise you against “touching” the DNS settings of your router, limiting yourself to alert your ISP customer service about the malfunction.
In short, on balance the possibility of diagnostics of the average user, in case of connection problems, are few and limited to malfunctions of the modem or of the connection with the external telephone switchboard. For the rest, however, the only solution lies in the intervention of the provider of internet connection.