HOW I FIXED MY INTERNET PROBLEM

Hi Everyone! COVID is known to raise your temperature, but it also raises your anger if your internet starts failing.
For those who remember I use to be the IT Assistant at Fenner Hall back in the day. A majority of the role was putting paper into the printers or helping new residents connect up to the internet.

Today I wanted to share with you some tips that helped me diagnose my issue and solve my problem. If you are using wireless connections this may also be the miracle solution for you.

SYMPTOM: My internet works fine most of the time but then suddenly drops out.

CHECK: A = All the devices drop out at the same time
B = Only one device drops out

IF A = true Check the log with your internet service provider. I use iiNet and they have a toolbox part of their website that i can check my account details along with a connection history. If all your devices dropped out at the same time as is in the Connection History, then most likely the fault is with your router or your internet provider. If you like most people are using the router provided by the internet company, then call up the company and ask for help.

This has happened to me once before, they did some background stuff on their end and things were amazing again.

IF B = true It is most likely that you are using wifi to connect to the router/internet. There could be two issues happening here, both which have the same solution in my book. Upgrading hardware!

The less likely option is that you just have a really old router. Older routers were designed in a time when it was expected that maybe you would have a couple of wifi devices in your house. I doubt designers back then imagined you would have everything you own wanting to connect to the internet including your lightbulbs. If your internet service provider gave you a router and its more than 5 years old, go back to them and ask for a new one.

The more likely option is that there are just too many invisible signals flooding your home. You have a router and all your devices shooting signals, your neighbours has the same, and the 30 other people in your apartment building. And somewhere in that mess something goes wrong. I don’t know why exactly but that has what has been happening to me recently. Reading my router log I thought there was DoS attacks causing the issue. But after talking to a friend apparently this is a common thing to appear in your log and you really only need to worry if you are getting more than 10 in a minute. A few every hour is no big deal, as you can see on my log here. For some reason turning the printer reduced how many DoS attacks were happening, but it didn’t solve the issue either. I also called iiNet and they said i should change channels on my router, but that did not solve the issue for me either.

THE MAGIC SOLUTION!!!
Well if wifi is the problem, stop using wifi is the solution! A friend of mine who is a neighbour was setting up his home office and he mentioned he was using a wired connection to his desktop and just bought a 10m cable to connect to his router. I asked if i could borrow that and hooked up my desktop computer to the router and hey presto! things were working. We let it sit there for an hour with a video call running and it did not drop out once. This was such a relief. So i went onto ebay and ordered a cable for myself.

When I was telling another friend about this issue he mentioned why not also get a ethernet adapter for my laptop. He had one lying around and let me borrow it. Again it worked amazingly well. Not only was my connection rock hard stable, I actually had a massive boost to my internet speed. And again I went onto ebay and ordered myself an ethernet adapter. It has now been about a fortnight since I implemented this new setup, and not once has the internet dropped out on my computers, but the issue still continues on my phone.

I am a happy camper now, and highly highly recommend people try out this solution before giving into despair and living with shoddy internet. It’s 2020, your internet should be as reliable as the water that comes out of your tap. And sometimes the easiest solution is to ditch wireless and get yourself an wired connection.

My Ebay purchase to fix the issue