Top 10 Things To Do When Your Broadband Connection Dies

I really don't mind if my natural gas supply fails in the middle of the winter. It's a nice chance to cuddle up on a thick rug in front of the fireplace. I really don't mind if my water supply is interrupted due to a mains break, as I can always head down to the gym for a nice hot shower. But sit me in front of my PC when I can't connect to the internet and I will go absolutely ballistic.

I admit it, I'm a broadband addict. I spend precious little time wasting precious little time on the internet, unlike a large number of users. I work on the net each and every day, sometimes for 12 hours straight. If I don't have internet access I can't work, and if I can't work I get as grouchy as a bear with a sore butt.

It's happened to all of us at one point or another. Although North American, Japanese and Northern European broadband connections are remarkably stable, even these can go out of whack causing you to fail in connecting. There are various steps you can do before marching down to your local ISP's office and threatening them with bodily harm.

1) Check all your cabling. You never know when the cat might have pulled out your ethernet, USB, RJ11, RJ45, AC or other cable.

2) Shut down your PC, and physically unplug the power cord from both your PC and your broadband modem. Go have a cup of coffee. At least five minutes later plug everything back in and boot back up. It's amazing how many times this trick works.

3) Make sure that the microfilters are all properly installed on each and every landline telephone in your location. Just one missing microfilter can scramble your connection.

4) Check your Device Manager to make sure that your Ethernet or USB drivers are functioning properly, and reinstall your ethernet and ISP software from original disks. Sometimes a bit of corruption creeping into these programs can keep you from connecting.

5) Uninstall any internet security software you may have. Anti-virus is generally ok, but internet security software like Norton can often misinterpret legitimate online signals and mess you up bigtime.

6) Renew your IP address by going into the Run menu, entering ipconfig /release, press Return, then go back into the Run menu, enter ipconfig /renew and press Return again. It won't hurt and it may reset something that's gone south in your IP address.

7) Use System Restore to a point in time when you could access the net properly.

8) Try connecting with a laptop or other computer. Sometimes there is no problem with the broadband connection but your PC has just decided it doesn't want to play any longer. This will ensure that the problem is not with the ISP's signal to your location.

9) Call your ISP to ask if there are any reports of service outages in your area and ask them to test your line to see if there is a problem on their end.

10) If you've used a Broadband Tweaking Utility that changes around your Registry Settings to the point where you can't connect any longer, you very well may have no choice but to reinstall your entire Windows Operating System from scratch. That will most definitely teach you to mess around in the Registry!

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