Internet Connectivity Issues: Using PING and IPCONFIG Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:17 PM
So you have a connection issue. Don't feel bad, everyone gets them, and in my house it's everything I can do not to throw my old router out the window and demand a new one‌ Addressed to Arjun: Is this problem only with the internet? If it's a desktop computer the first thing to do would be to open it up and clean out the dust from the insides; however as you mentioned a battery, I would assume it's a laptop. Having your internet, or entire computer slow down over time is a natural thing that you really have no control over. First off, if you are not using Google Chrome or Firefox, I would suggest installing BOTH. If you already have them both installed then I would think that reinstalling them would do you some good as well, as over time the files tend to "decay". What I mean by this is that after your computer reads the 1's and 0's MILLIONS of times it sometimes flips a 1 or 0, consequently changing how the program runs, or causing the operating system (Windows for you, I'm sure) to assume that there are issues and waste some of it's capabilities fixing the problem. Additionally you may have some connectivity issues related to the hardware you are using. To test this you will need to do some advanced things. I can walk you through it as well as I can. Open the CMD. If you don't know how then go to START MENU-->ALL PROGRAMS-->ACCESSORIES. Alternatively, you can also press the Windows Key (That's the little key on your keyboard with the Windows icon on it) and the "R" key at the same time. This opens the Run menu. From here just type in CMD.
The CMD, which is the command terminal for windows systems, will allow you to enter commands to find out and change system settings. Type in "ipconfig" to this menu now. What should appear is a list of all of the details for you networks. Realize that this is not your INTERNET connection itself, but just the network you are connected to.
Find the entry that says "default gateway". Four sets of numbers should follow this entry, separated by "."'s. The entry should start with 192.168. the next two numbers will vary depending on the network you are using. As
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entry should start with 192.168. the next two numbers will vary depending on the network you are using. As ilustrated below, on my network the numbers are 1.1. On your network they could be 10.1, 0.1, 15.1, or whatever else you could think of. The "Gateway" is the IP address of the router on your network. The function of this entry is to tell your network card were the first place to send packets (little pieces of information) to. Write this number down now.
This is the Gateway Entry
Now that you know the IP address of the router, it's time to see how well you are able to send packets to it, and how well it is able to respond. You do this by entering the PING command into the CMD, followed by the IP address of the router (the Gateway entry). If you forgot it you can always scroll back up to see it. You should currently have typed in the following to the CMD. Realize of course that the "x" 's represent the numbers that I am unable to know of. Fill them in with the numbers from the gateway address. Realize that in my example that I use the IP address of the router on my network, chances are that yours may not be the same. Please be sure to enter your address PING 192.168.x.x Press Enter
What comes back to the CMD should be a short report of the connection to the router. By default, the PING tool only sends 4 packets to the destination you specify.
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As I suspect that you may have some issues with connectivity. If you look at my entry, you can see that I did (as I am at the beach and using the neighbors internet connection) The packets that did not make it end up returning the message "request timed out" If you have one or two of these we may have just found your issue, however it would do us some good to look further into it. You are going to tell the CMD to ping mulitple times. Enter the following: PING 192.168.x.x /n 50 Press Enter
This changes the number of packets sent off to 50. After the report comes back, you should have a LOT of data, and unless you know a good deal about computers or networking chances are you don't quite know what to do with it all. At this point I would maximize the CMD and get ready to dive in! (just a note, it does not get any wider, just much taller when you maximize it. Don't be alarmed, this is standard.) If you look at the list, you may see a good deal of dropped packets. This means that your computer is having difficulty connecting to your router. This would cause you to experience really bad lag, as the computer is having to send off the same data two or three times before the router receives it. Take a look at the ping statistics at the very bottom of the results It should look like the following example
As you can see, the router I am currently connected to isn't hearing my computer very well. I would susspect that your computer is having the same issue. For both your edification and the additional development of this troubleshooting session I am going to give you some standards to compare your results to. What you saw above (my example) is a BAD connection. If your report looks anything like that, then chances are that your issue is connectivity. A good connection typically has the following examples: Packets Sent: 50 Packets Received:47-50 Lost:0-3 <0%-6% loss> Minimum time: <1ms Maximum time: 3ms Average: This can vary depending, really good routers have an average of <1ms, but 3ms is alrightâ&#x20AC;Ś My average was appalling. If you have anything above 10ms I would be concerned.
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Internet Connectivity Issues: Getting a new IP address Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:53 PM
So greatâ&#x20AC;Ś Now you know you may have an issue with your connection to the routerâ&#x20AC;Ś What to do? Your first course of action would be to reset and reestablish your connection with the router. Of course, the best way to do this is in the CMD, so get ready to utilize the IPCONFIG command again! First, enter the command to the router like you did the previous time.
This time, in an effort to force you to learn, I will start by making you use the query tag. Enter the following: IPCONFIG /?
This causes the CMD to report to you all of the details of the IPCONFIG tool. The little entries with the "/" 's next to them are the ones you are going to focus on. Although they really have no "proper term" the majority of coders call them "tags" .bat files are mostly markup anyway, so they closely resemble the tags used in one of the most notable markup languages to date: HTML
While reading the different tags available I would like to note: these are what you would call FULL tags. They use an
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While reading the different tags available I would like to note: these are what you would call FULL tags. They use an entire word as an entry. In most markup languages these words are abbreviated into single letters or characters. For example: we used the ping /n command previously. The "n" stood for number, as in the number of packets to send to the specified target. I have digressed, please now focus on the following entries: /release /renew /flushdns /registerdns I realize that is a LOT to have to deal with, but you are going to enter all of these tags into the CMD, in an effort to reestablish a more stable connection to the router. I could teach you how to write a program to do this for you, however I will only go there is this becomes necessary. ************************************************************************************************ NOTE: You will loose internet connection while you perform this procedure. That means that if you are viewing this online you will not be able to read about how to get your internet back! Please download this now if you have not done so already. If you can't download or there is an issue, you can always email me at astnlucas242@gmail.com. ************************************************************************************************ First, enter the /release command. Your entry should look like the following:
If you are using Vista, you may run into a small issue here. Vista will spit the following message back out at you: --The requested operation requires elevation.--All this means is that you need to have admisistrative privlidiges on the machine. Getting around this is REALLY easy, and I wish Microsoft would have enough sense to either make it worthwile or remove the feature alltogether. To get around this error message: go to START MENU-->ALL PROGRAMS-->ACCESSORIES and find the CMD entry.
There it is!
Now right click on the entry, and press "run as administrator"
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yes, you will get the annoying popup asking if you REALLY do want to run this program, as if any hacker couldn't write a program to hit a button, or even better yet do it himselfâ&#x20AC;Ś So now you are in. Yes, you have power! >:D Notice that your system directory has now changed to system 32, and in the taskbar that your program now begins with Administrator. We are good to go now!
Right! Back to your connection issues! Enter the following:
This time it should give you a much nicer message than before if you were using Vista After you press enter, notice the following changes that are made
The Gateway address is gone! So is a good deal of other information that was allowing you to access the internet in the first place. Don't worry though, we will bring it back when we need to. The next thing to do is to flush the DNS. This means that your computer will forget about all of it's Domain Name Server entries, until you replace them with the ones on the router Enter the following: Ipconfig /flushdns
You won't get much back from this other than a simple message telling you that windows was able to do what you asked it to. That's good though. Machines are supposed to submit to your willâ&#x20AC;Ś I guess its time to restore the connection to the state you would like to have it in. the first thing to do would be to restore the DNS entries and get a new IP address from the router. Start with entering the following: Ipconfig /registerdns
You should get the following message in return
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Errors will be reported in the next fifteen minutes huh? Sounds ominousâ&#x20AC;Ś I think now would be the time to get you an IP address on the network itself, so enter the following. This may take a little while, so just wait patiently. Ipconfig /renew
What follows should be familiar! It's the IPCONFIG report!
Notice that you should now have a default gateway, and an IP address for your system. If your computer was having issues based off of a small bug in the programming it should be fixed or otherwise thrown off by this point. Go back and ping the router 50 times and see if your results have changed for the better. If they have, then good for you! You just successfully fixed a network issue that takes trained professionals a good deal of time to figure out, and if not just send me an email or facebook message and I'll finish the next portion of the troubleshooting guide. Hope for the best
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