Techno BUDDY
BILL HUSTED
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. Civilisation 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 synchronisation - in layman's terms, the ability to properly link your computer to the Internet provider's network. When that happens, the Web unravels, email stops working. Onscreen 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 per cent of the time. It forces the modem in your home to renew its acquaintance with the equipment at your Internet provider.
If that doesn't work, spend a moment to check cable and power connections. Not long ago I was able to show my own incompetence when we lost our home connection. I had tried most of the tricks that I knew and was about to call tech support when I noticed that the panel lights on a hub (a device simpler but similar to a router) were out. Turns out my wife had moved a paper shredder and jogged the wiring enough to pull the power connection loose.
Sometimes the problem is a connection that works, but too slowly for work to get done. Keep in mind that, just as on a motorway, traffic to a web site can get so heavy that things slow to a crawl. Besides that, the Internet itself slows down at times. You can check this at http://www.internettrafficreport.com.
Avoid tinkering at the first sign of slowness. But if the slow connection persists across all sites for several days, the problem may be in your house.
Possible causes include interference from other gadgets, even a mal- functioning light or dimmer switch can spark a slowdown, as can kinks in an Ethernet cable. Try turning off suspect devices and checking the cable for kinks.
It would be wrong to write about technology without throwing in mysterious initials. So here's one: MTU, or maximum transmission unit.
To understand MTU, you need to know that data travel on the Internet in packets. If you send an email to your Aunt Sally, the note is broken down into bite-size chunks, and these are sent out in a stream. You can set your computer to adjust the size of each packet.Windows Vista tries to do all that adjusting for you. Earlier versions of Windows sometimes need manual tweaking. A faulty MTU setting can slow the transmission of data, but please, don't try making adjustments without spending a lot more time learning about it. Here's a site that discusses MTU and Windows Vista: tinyurl.com/6zkr34.
That's it for today. Maybe the next time you hear the words, "the Internet is down," you'll be able to get it working again without a phone call.
Bill Husted writes about technology for Cox News Service.
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