Twice a year or so my wife will breathlessly tell me: “The Internet is down.”
My first reaction is that I am sitting on one heck of a news story. Civilization as we know it would slow to a crawl if the Internet itself stopped working. But I know what she really means: Our DSL connection isn’t working.
Compared with the old dial-up days, most of us have it easy. I’m not just talking about speed. The connection is much more reliable nowadays. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the connection is much more crucial to the way we live. It connects us to work, to school, to our online banking and bill-paying.
Luckily, there are some simple ways to remain well-connected.
Today we’ll talk about what you can do to avoid the dreaded conversation with your Internet provider’s tech support staff.
Let’s start with the most basic trick I know. It’s embarrassingly simple but enormously effective: Turn the modem off, let it sit for a moment, and then turn it on.
Here’s why that often works wonders in restoring a connection.
Modems occasionally lose synchronization — in layman’s terms, the ability to properly link your computer to the Internet provider’s network. When that happens, the Web unravels, e-mail stops working.
On-screen messages may tell you what you already know and offer brainy suggestions such as making sure all the cables are plugged in. But I’ve never seen a message that offers the most obvious fix: Turn off the modem and any router connected to it, let it sit, then turn it back on.
Let me make up a statistic here: I estimate this on/off trick will get your connection going again about 60 percent of the time.
It forces the modem in your home to renew its acquaintance with the equipment at your Internet provider.
If that…