by Richard Tausch

“My computer is not connecting to the internet. What do I do now?!”

Your heart is racing and your nerves are frazzled. It’s Friday. You just glanced at the clock and noticed it is 4:48pm. You have a customer packet that needs to go out before 5pm, and you cannot connect to the Internet. Sound familiar?

It looks like Murphy’s “Lawlessness” has wrapped its claws around you and taken hold. Don’t fret….at least, not just yet!

Let’s start by discussing the three most common areas of failure if you cannot connect to the Internet, some of which you may be able to resolve by your lonesome. We won’t go into the details regarding the third item, “Virus’s and Malware,” but just touch upon it briefly because we will have a separate article on products and how to use them to remove viruses and malware in an upcoming article. But I would like to cover some items that you can address that may bring you back online without having to wait on hold with Comcast, Yahoo, or another provider and you may even beat that deadline yet, provided you can leap into action.

Here are the three situations that typically cause your internet (or, in the case of viruses and malware, your browser) to fail:

• Your ISP May Be Down

Often times it is difficult to tell whether your ISP is down (outage) or your local network is down, because often the same lights flash (or fail to flash). In both cases, you are left with the ambiguity of not knowing how to proceed, aside from calling your ISP directly or simply restarting your computer.

In the case of some outages, when you call in to an ISP, there may be a message reflecting the status of an outage in your area or the ability through prompts to check for an outage in your area. But if your internet is down, the issue may lie in your home network, specifically your Comcast or DSL router, your wireless router, your cable connection, or your computer itself. So let’s discuss these next:

• Your Home Network

o Your home network is a fairly complex system, but easy to diagnose for most situations. These suggestions might help resolve your connectivity issue:

1. The first thing I usually ask a customer to do is to try going on the internet with another browser. Many computers have Firefox (and even Safari) installed. If this is the case, try opening up Firefox and go to both google.com and yahoo.com. If that works, there is a good chance that your Internet Explorer browser is corrupt or hijacked by malware, which tries to direct you to certain sites, among other annoyances such as failing to load a web page. If there are other computers on the same home network, verify that they also cannot get on the Internet. If they cannot, proceed to step 3. If they can get, proceed to step 2 instead.

2. Repair your network connection. In Windows XP, either right-click on “My Network Places” and go to “Properties.” As an option, click on the Start button and look for “My Network Places,” right-click on it, and go to “Properties.” In the window that opens, look for either the “Local Area Connection” Icon or the one that indicates “Wireless.” Right-click on it and choose “Repair.” Wait 2 minutes and try your browser again. In Windows Vista, go to the Start button, click on “Network,” and then “Network and Sharing Center” in your breadcrumb (the blue menu bar). Finally, click on “Diagnose and Repair” on the sidebar. Often times this can result in success.

3. Restart your Comcast Cable or DSL unit. If the above fails, here is something you can do in virtually 2-3 minutes: If you are using a cable modem such as Comcast and there is no network activity (you may have only 2 green lights flashing), go to the back of the Comcast box, pull out the power plug (the little black plug), wait 20 seconds, and then replace the plug. Then remove the coaxial cable, wait 5 seconds, and tighten it back in. Wait 3 minutes or until 4 of the 5 green lights are lit and then retest your browser. If you are using a DSL connection, then pull the little black power plug out of the back, wait 20 seconds, connect the plug back up, wait 3 minutes, and try to connect to the internet.

4. Reboot your computer. Sometimes after resetting your home network, you may still need to reboot your computer.

5. Restart your wireless router. Last but not least, locate your wireless router if you have one. This is the device that is connected to your Comcast cable or DSL box. Look for the little black power plug at the back, pull it out, wait 20 seconds, and then replace it. Wait for 3 minutes. If you still cannot get on the internet, then it is possible you will need to contact your ISP.

• Viruses and Malware

o It’s no secret that many viruses and malware creators have gravitated toward trying to make money rather than just propagating destruction on computers these days. These new derivatives come in the form of browser hijacks that try to redirect you to a site that you did not choose in hopes of having you purchase products, or trying to capture keystrokes that could include personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers. Naturally, the best way to avoid having these situations is to make sure you have anti-virus and anti-malware software on your system, and that they are updated. There are a number of free choices which will be discussed in a future article.

How will you know if there is a possibility your browser has been exploited by viruses or malware? That may be the case if your system has slowed (slowness can also be caused by other things) but, most important, if you enter a web site and get the wrong one, or your browser fails to load, you may have been victimized by malware. That holds true as long as others in your network are able to get on the Internet from other computers. If so,this situation suggests the necessity of installing anti-virus or anti-malware software, and updating it if already installed, and doing system scans.

Start at the top of this list and work down. Perform the checks and steps outlined above, and there is a good chance you will be back on the Internet in short order.

Here’s to happy connections,
Richard Tausch

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