Troubleshooting Network Connectivity (1)

May 26th, 2008

Part of my job is to help people troubleshooting network connectivity issues.  As you all know, network today is not really a plug-and-play thing, at least not as easy as setting up a toaster.  So, when we have a network issue, what or where should we look at?  Here are summary of the steps I typically use and I’ll elaborate these items in this series of articles.

• Rule out stupid issues
• Rule out hardware issues
• Rule out configuration issues
• Rule out software issues

Rule out stupid issues
Here are some of my favorite stupid issues. Make sure they are checked before any investigation 🙂

1. Do we have everything powered on?
2. Do we have everything plugged in firmly and correctly?
   If there are young children around the house, double check these two items and make sure they do not have access to the working area!
3. Did I pay my internet/phone bill?
4. Are we free of Faraday cages?
   Per my own experience, this is surprisingly common.  People often disassembled their computer and put the case panels nearby their own wireless router, and form a perfect Faraday cage preventing themselves from using wireless.
5. Are batteries charged and installed correctly, if any?

If all answers to these quick questions are yes, we can now move on to the next steps.

Technical, Troubleshooting, Windows | Comments