Although every effort goes into ensuring you always have a stable and robust network, problems can arise from time to time. Whether you are troubleshooting a personal network or a business network there are some things you can try out in order to fix your problem before or whilst waiting for a professional to carry out a network repair service.
Having the knowledge to be able to troubleshoot a few issues can be extremely helpful, especially in businesses where downtime on the network can mean loss of money. It is also very valuable to be able to troubleshoot networks at home especially now more people are relying on their home networks for work.
There are some basic troubleshooting steps that you can take to cover most of the more common network issues.
The Basics
When your network is having issues or goes down completely, the issue could be simple to fix. The first step you should always take is to reboot your router, firewall and WiFi access points if this is applicable. Sometimes a simple reboot is all that is needed in order to get your network up and running again. If this doesn’t fix the issue the next easy step to take is to see if anything needs an upgrade or update. From time to time network equipment will need an update in order for it to keep performing correctly.
Another simple check to perform is to check your network internet status. It may be that there is a problem with the internet line causing issues, or that there is a problem with a valid IP address.
Steps to take when troubleshooting
When you are trying to find a solution to a network problem it is important to gather as much information about the problem as possible.
Try to identify the problem
Before you try and fix any issue you need to know what the problem is. Try to gather as much information about the issue and when it first occurred. If you are trying to solve a network problem within a business, you may have certain network tools available to you that can carry out checks on your behalf. This can be software for your access points, or the admin portal to your router and firewall. You can ask users questions to try and identify the problem, find out what errors are showing if any, and what difficulties they are experiencing.
Try to find out if it is affecting only a small group of users, one user in particular or if the issue is site-wide as this will also help you when trying to pinpoint the issue to either a hardware fault, an update gone wrong or an internet connection issue.
By asking questions you will also be able to find out if anything has changed on the network recently. Ask if any new devices have been added to the network or if there have been more users on the network than usual. Has any of the software or hardware had an update you are unaware of?
Creating then testing your theory
Once you have gathered all the information available to you, you can start to develop a theory based on your findings. If an update has been installed, can you remove the update and see if that fixes the issue? If something new has been added to the network, can you remove it and see if this solves the problem? If you believe some of your network equipment is faulty, can you replace it with something temporary to test if this fixes the problems you are experiencing? If when you test your theory, and it does not work you can then look at another theory and test that. You need to work through all the potential fixes you have information on in order to get to the bottom of and then fix the problem.
Implementation of the solution
If you are lucky enough to work out exactly what the problem is, you can then look at putting in a temporary (if needed whilst waiting on new equipment for example) and then a permanent fix. You may need to get professional help to put in a permanent fix or you may need to purchase new equipment to replace the faulty hardware.
Note down the issue and fix for the next time
The last step to always take when you have found a fix for a network problem is to note it down somewhere safe in case it ever occurs again. If you are working for a business maintaining their network or even if this is for your home network, it can be a really handy process to follow so that if you encounter the issue again, you will be able to go straight to the fix for the problem without having to waste time troubleshooting all over again. You can build up a knowledge library for your network so that when any future problems arise you can save time by checking this before having to start at the beginning of the troubleshooting process.
Network problem help from the WiFi Specialist
Of course, not all network problems can be fixed with simple troubleshooting, or you may not feel confident or even want to troubleshoot yourself, which is when you may need to call out a professional like the WiFi Specialist engineers.
We have a team of experts nationwide ready to help with any of your networking problems. One of our experienced engineers can come to the site and perform a network health test that will be able to pinpoint your issue for you and highlight any out-of-date software.
We can then recommend the best course of action for your network based on our findings.
Your local WiFi Specialist engineer will know the area and will be able to find out if there any local line issues that could be creating network problems.
Do you need troubleshooting assistance or a network repair service?
Contact The Wifi Specialist today for a quote or to arrange a no obligation survey
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