Ethernet Troubleshooting
There can be many reasons why your network isn’t working properly. Perhaps there are problems with your computer’s software or it could be network hardware issues. Some tips to help you fix your Ethernet network woes will be given below.
Checking your network hardware should be the first item on your troubleshooting list. There are status lights on most network devices. Check that your lights are lit on your router, switch, hub, and/or network adapter.
If the lights aren’t lit as they should be check to make sure everything is plugged in correctly. For example, check the power cord to your router and your network wires. If that doesn’t solve the problem, try swapping suspected problem components with ones you know are good.
If it seems that the network hardware is working as it should try refreshing your IP address. Check to make sure that your computer doesn’t have the same IP address as another computer. To refresh your IP address you’ll need to restart your computer or unplug your router then plug it back in.
Devices that have both wireless and wired connections need to be tested. Do you have a device that has their wireless adapter on and a network cable plugged into the network port? Check to see if your problem can be solved by turning off your wireless adapter.
Check to see if you have any conflicts in your operating system’s device manager if you’re still having issues. It could be that the network adapter wasn’t fully installed or you could have a bad driver. Look under the hardware tab to find the network adapters.
If you see a yellow exclamation point or a red X next to an item then you have a problem with your driver for that device. Try reinstalling the driver or update your driver to see if that fixes the problem.
Check the items in the “other devices” category. Do you see any yellow question marks there? Items found here are ones that Windows did not properly identify so you’ll need to reinstall those drivers.
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