Sunday 12 October 2014

3 Router Problems You Won't Believe Can Be Solved In Less Than 3 Minutes

My wife and I came home around 9am after fetching her from night duty work yesterday and decided to eat breakfast at home. The kids were still in their rooms so we shouted for them to come down and join us. As usual they did not comply immediately and I just knew why they were still in bed, busy with their phones doing internet stuff. So I decided to turn off the router by unplugging it from the mains. After a minute they were downstairs and joined us at the table. That confirmed that they were on their mobile devices. Whilst they were eating, I’d decided to plug in the router to warm up.

We spent at least 30 minutes eating and noticed that my phone was still not connected to our home Wi-Fi. The SSID was not broadcasting! Investigating further, the router's wireless (Wi-Fi) button was not lit up. Normally it should have been working after 2 minutes of turning it back on. So I tried to unplug and plug it again but it was still unlit. Only the power and the internet button were on. Interestingly, I did not have the problem of connecting to the internet with an Ethernet cable.  I attempted to log in to the ip gateway to see if the wireless function might have been disabled but the browser said, 'there has been changes to the network configuration...' so the router's command page was not showing.

I called sky and the technician started from the top, checking the line, the filter, the physical cord and toggling on and off, plugging and unplugging from the mains. There was no progress after 30 minutes of trying.

Then the technician asked me to press the reset button.  Yes of course, this should be the first attempt that I should have done. But I was thinking that if you unplug it from the mains, the router already resets itself. I was wrong.

Resetting is easy and depending on the kind of button the router has. Other models need a ball point pen or paperclip tip (2) to press the button and other models has an easier access (1) and just require your finger tip. Do not worry because the SSID and passkey are not affected with the reset. To reset, power it on then press the reset button until the lights turn off and the power button blinks then release.


After reset, the existing router problems were resolved.

1. The unlit (Wireless) Wi-Fi button light is now on.

After reset, the power button lit up followed by the wireless (Wi-Fi) button, then the internet button. The Wi-Fi has no problem broadcasting its SSID so that allowed devices automatically connect.

2. Reduced black spots/improved internet connectivity

Before this, there were a number of black spots (Wi-Fi weak connection problem) around the house when I am using my laptop although I do not have problem with mobile devices. It seemed that the only device that experiences a black spot in a particular place is my laptop. That was the reason I bought a power line wired connection. I was surprised that my laptop's ability to connect to the internet is better than before. 


The reset also resolved the connectivity of my windows laptop and the apple TV. It's been months that I have a problem streaming Windows movie content to an apple TV. Before when I try to connect to apple TV, my laptop says 'cannot detect apple TV in the network. Check Wi-Fi, make sure firewall allows appleTV..’ , even though both devices are connected in the same Wi-Fi, the same credentials  and apple TV is detected from the drop down list on my laptop’s  iTunes program!

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