So Spectrum is no longer showing an outage in my neighborhood. I haven’t been able to check with neighbors yet…been out flying. But I’m wondering if my Surfboard modem got zapped in the storm perhaps.
So I unplugged it several times. No luck with that.
Next I tried running straight cable > router > PC with no intermediate connections and rebooting all. Still no luck.
Tried Windows “fix my internet” tool and that didn’t work.
Do I just need to get Spectrum out here or can I test my modem somehow to see if it’s not working correctly? I still suspect the problem is outside the house on the cable lines…
Start with the computer unplugged, go to Network and Sharing Center and get to the adapter properties for your ethernet/wifi adapter. On status, note the IP address (IPv4). Windows has one it uses when it hasn’t been given one, just keep that in mind for now. Mine comes up as 169.254.94.92 when disconnected.
Connect wifi / cable and give it a minute for the router to assign an IP address.
Check the IP again. Typical internal IPs are 192.168.X.X series, or 10.0.X.X series.
Have one of those? Router function is OK, on to the modem.
Still have that windows default IP? Router side isn’t doing it’s job, I’d look up how to factory reset it.
Okay, so let’s assume the router side works - you have an IP address.
Let’s try to log in to the router. If you have a 192.168 series IP - check the third digit group. Is it a one or a zero? Note that. Now, change the fourth group to 1.
IE: 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1
Throw that in the browser ex: http:// 192.168.1.1 (omit the space)
All going well - this is the router login screen. You may have a password, maybe it’s taped on the bottom, maybe you need to look up the password like this: Provider Modem Model Password in google.
If you can log in, look for a WAN or “Public” IP address. This is you address to the outside word. If you got one - it’s at least connecting. You can try to factory reset it, just in case. If not, you have bigger problems - time for tech support.
Extra:
If you do log in to the modem, sometimes you can dig around and find signal levels. Mention those when talking with the techs, they may be able to use that to find which section of cable is bad by checking signal levels at each junction between you and them. Had that done before!
Awesome guidance. Working through it now. I can say that when I connect to my router I get a successful LAN ping test, but an unsuccessful WAN ping test…
Back in business! Thanks for the suggestions @Wes - your comment:
…coupled with a call to Spectrum seemed to do the trick. I did a factory reset, called Spectrum, they said they’d try to communicate with the model and I’m working again! Whew…
You are certainly welcome, sir!
I’ve dealt with enough internet & network problems - nobody else needs to go through all the hassle if at all possible.
I thought this would be a good place to add another diagnostic that I recently learned.
This one works when you have an application (DCS, Discord, another game perhaps) that constantly disconnects but Windows doesn’t seem to report any connection issues.
Games have less fault tolerance than say, video streaming (which is a download with a buffer more or less). So blips will cause headaches - last night I kept disconnecting from a game with friends for seemingly no reason, discord even ran through it OK.
Open the Event Viewer
Select Applications and Service Logs
Select Microsoft
Select Windows
Scroll down and select UniversalTelemetryClient
Select Operational
Scroll the list for the time period in question. You are looking for Event ID #56 and #55.
ID 56 is: Is a free network available. If it is false this at least verifies that you lost network connectivity at that moment, and it wasn’t the game server/service. Event ID 55 can also indicate that, it is Is the Internet available which may also be true or false.
For WiFi users, this can mean that your wifi momentarily dropped. With more sources of interference, we can’t say that this was a internet issue or just an interference issue. Do more testing.
For Ethernet users, check the switches, router and modem next. If they are otherwise operational, give them a reboot. If these events and drops still show up (leave a PC running overnight just to collect data) - it’s not you.
