Internet Problems
 

I am the only one affected by this so far.

My modem or whatever kicks me off the internet, my mother is still on and all, most of the time it won't say no internet. It usually will reconnect to the internet on its own after awhile (stays connected to the modem though). Trouble shooter says Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (Primary DNS server)

Call the ISP...they did all the can do, nothing changed. They're coming to replace the modem which we just got a month ago...if that doesn't work, I don't know what to do. Does anyone know how to fix this problem beyond using an ethernet cable?

I wish I had a good answer for you. Some Windows computers just have randomly flaky wifi and I don't know why.

You might try changing your DNS settings to 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4, although you'll have to look up how to do that because I don't use Windows if I can avoid it. ^^()

That's the thing, until this new modem....it would only mess up when everyone's internet was messing up...

There are new things under network adapters -goes to google until internet dies again-

What are WAN miniports? And what are they doing on my computer?

Nooo,Coda, be online....tell me the thiiiiiiiings XD (Google is unhelpful, most people, their internet won't work at all, mine will with periods of outage)

I'm going to just PM you the next time I need help (and hoped you aren't swamped with all the things XD)

Please keep support requests in threads. ^^() I'd rather track them here than in PMs, and other people can help here too.

In all seriousness, wifi is weird on Windows. Different combinations of hardware, driver, and router seem to have different levels of stability, even though wifi is SUPPOSED to be a well-implemented standard.

Troubleshooting Windows network issues is a massive pain. Worse, you can only troubleshoot them DURING the problem, so problems that appear to solve themselves after a while are even harder to figure out.

Things to try include forgetting the network and reconfiguring it from scratch. It's entirely possible that when you replaced the router, the settings aren't EXACTLY the same as what Windows was expecting.

This is what I hate: I have the log....no idea what it means D:

Windows Network Diagnostics Publisher details

Issues found
Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (primary DNS server)Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (primary DNS server)
The device or resource is not responding to requests. Detected Detected
Contact your network administrator or Internet service provider (ISP) Completed


Issues found Detection details

6 Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (primary DNS server) Detected Detected

The device or resource is not responding to requests.
Contact your network administrator or Internet service provider (ISP) Completed

Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (primary DNS server). If you are at home, contact your ISP. Otherwise, contact your network administrator for assistance.


Detection details Expand

Informational Diagnostics Information (Network Adapter)
Details about network adapter diagnosis:

Network adapter Wi-Fi driver information:

Description . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter
Manufacturer . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom
Provider . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom
Version . . . . . . . . . . . : 7.35.333.0
Inf File Name . . . . . . . . . : C:\WINDOWS\INF\oem28.inf
Inf File Date . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, December 1, 2015 1:23:28 AM
Section Name . . . . . . . . . : BCM43XNG_NT64
Hardware ID . . . . . . . . . . : pci\ven_14e4&dev_4365
Instance Status Flags . . . . . : 0x180200a
Device Manager Status Code . . : 0
IfType . . . . . . . . . . . . : 71
Physical Media Type . . . . . . : 9


Diagnostics Information (Wireless Connectivity)
Details about wireless connectivity diagnosis:

Information for connection being diagnosed
Interface GUID: 321623bf-f7e0-45bf-8554-72782a430e94
Interface name: The Broadcom 802.11 Network Adapter provides wireless local area networking.
Interface type: Native Wi-Fi

Connection incident diagnosed
Auto Configuration ID: 1
Connection ID: 1

Connection status summary
Connection started at: 2017-02-08 00:12:36-297
Profile match: Success
Pre-Association: Success
Association: Success
Security and Authentication: Success

List of visible access point(s): 5 item(s) total, 5 item(s) displayed
BSSID BSS Type PHY Signal(dB) Chnl/freq SSID
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
4A-D9-E7-23-07-7B Infra <unknown> -87 11 Pontotoc Park
2C-B0-5D-25-4E-94 Infra <unknown> -69 11 Valkyrie
B0-C2-87-51-09-6F Infra <unknown> -76 6 Nearly Nu Shoppee
FC-52-8D-C9-E5-26 Infra <unknown> -42 3 Rawrz
94-62-69-7A-75-00 Infra <unknown> -88 6 ATT880

Connection History

Information for Auto Configuration ID 1

List of visible networks: 5 item(s) total, 5 item(s) displayed
BSS Type PHY Security Signal(RSSI) Compatible SSID
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infra <unknown> No 6 Yes Pontotoc Park
Infra <unknown> Yes 50 Yes Valkyrie
Infra <unknown> Yes 28 Yes Nearly Nu Shoppee
Infra <unknown> Yes 91 Yes Rawrz
Infra <unknown> Yes 4 Yes ATT880

List of preferred networks: 2 item(s)
Profile: Rawrz
SSID: Rawrz
SSID length: 5
Connection mode: Infra
Security: Yes
Set by group policy: No
Connect even if network is not broadcasting: No
Connectable: Yes
Profile: Valkyrie
SSID: Valkyrie
SSID length: 8
Connection mode: Infra
Security: Yes
Set by group policy: No
Connect even if network is not broadcasting: No
Connectable: No
Reason: 0x00028001

Information for Connection ID 1
Connection started at: 2017-02-08 00:12:36-297
Auto Configuration ID: 1
Profile: Rawrz
SSID: Rawrz
SSID length: 5
Connection mode: Infra
Security: Yes
Pre-Association and Association
Connectivity settings provided by hardware manufacturer (IHV): No
Security settings provided by hardware manufacturer (IHV): No
Profile matches network requirements: Success
Pre-association status: Success
Association status: Success
Last AP: fc-52-8d-c9-e5-26
Security and Authentication
Configured security type: WPA2-PSK
Configured encryption type: CCMP(AES)
802.1X protocol: No
Key exchange initiated: Yes
Unicast key received: Yes
Multicast key received: Yes
Number of security packets received: 0
Number of security packets sent: 0
Security attempt status: Success
Connectivity
Packet statistics
Ndis Rx: 54
Ndis Tx: 743
Unicast decrypt success: 19
Multicast decrypt success: 0
Unicast decrypt failure: 0
Multicast decrypt failure: 0
Rx success: 239
Rx failure: 212
Tx success: 93
Tx failure: 0
Tx retry: 0
Tx multiple retry: 0
Tx max lifetime exceeded: 0
Tx ACK failure: 0
Roaming history: 0 item(s)




InformationalDiagnostics Information (Wireless Connectivity)
Details about wireless connectivity diagnosis:

For complete information about this session see the wireless connectivity information event.

Helper Class: Auto Configuration
Initialize status: Success

Information for connection being diagnosed
Interface GUID: 321623bf-f7e0-45bf-8554-72782a430e94
Interface name: The Broadcom 802.11 Network Adapter provides wireless local area networking.
Interface type: Native Wi-Fi

Result of diagnosis: There may be problem






InformationalDiagnostics Information (Wireless Network Adapter)
Details about wireless network adapter diagnosis:

For complete information about this session see the wireless connectivity information event.

Helper Class: Native Wi-Fi MSM
Initialize status: Success

Information for connection being diagnosed
Interface GUID: 321623bf-f7e0-45bf-8554-72782a430e94
Interface name: The Broadcom 802.11 Network Adapter provides wireless local area networking.
Interface type: Native Wi-Fi
Profile: Rawrz
SSID: Rawrz
SSID length: 5
Connection mode: Infra
Security: Yes
Connect even if network is not broadcasting: No

Result of diagnosis: There may be problem


Is there somewhere to get that translated to English? Cause I have no idea what that means for FIXING the problem D:

See for a few days this problem was happening to me and mom (we were the only ones home so....no way to know if it was just us or not...but anyway) then yesterday it was just me. Maybe it's an IP address thing....and her computer finally righted itself and mine is like NOPE HATE YOU DDDDDD:

Which they're replacing the modem sometime today and if that don't work, then trying DNS...and then I'm just going to explode lol

Unfortunately, translating that into English just says "we've got a connection to the router, but we can't communicate with a required Internet service through it." Which you mostly already knew.

If the problem is specifically something to do with DNS (as opposed to that being just a symptom of a different problem) then there are things we can do.

It's possible that your modem has a buggy DNS server. (This is annoyingly common, especially with the cheap crap you get from ISPs -- they can handle a single user but they fall apart as you start putting more load on the Internet connection.) If this is true, then web addresses that you've already looked up will continue working for a while, and connections you've already established will continue to work but new connections will fail to be established. This would produce the message you saw, and it would mean that other people on your network might not notice the outage if they're sticking to just doing the same thing the whole time.

If the problem is indeed with your router's DNS server, then the best thing to do would be to configure your computer to not use it -- which is what I had mentioned earlier. Google's DNS servers are fast, free to use, and have something like 99.999% (maybe even 99.9999%) uptime. Those servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

What I said you should look up is instructions for how to set the DNS servers. I don't know what version of Windows you're using, and the specific steps vary, but you shouldn't have any trouble finding what you need.

This technical stuff is beyond my but, just to share, we have net problems routinely that appear to be traffic related. Do you have a lot of things trying to connect at the same time? Phones? Stereos? Etc?

Where I'm living now we don't have the best internet so depending on how many devices are trying to attach to the wireless, the connection will just up and quit. We have to tell people to disconnect phones and such if they are't doing anything important so that the people that need it can connect.

My brother's place was dropping connections for a while, and it turned out that there was a setting that he didn't know about that capped the number of devices that could connect to the wireless. He has devices everywhere trying to connect so it was hitting max cap all the time. We fixed that and now, according to all the tech guys that come in to look at it, it's now an issue of the wireless not being able to keep up with demand.

That's a symptom of a cheap router. I went and bought a $300 router (on sale for $150) so that it wouldn't crap out like that.

My brother rarely goes cheap, especially since his work depends on a lot of this, but it is possible that it's not up to where it needs to be for the household.

We usually have about the same number of things connecting wirelessly at a given time, our laptops and maybe a ps3.

Question! Channels, putting it on channel 11 kicks me off, but mom's fine. Channel 3 kicks mom, but I'm fine....why would this happen? We changed it to 9 and so far, neither of us has been kicked or anything -crosses fingers-

Different radio interference on different channels. If it's affecting you differently, it could be something as simple as where you are in the house, or it could be something to do with the physical construction of your computers and where your wifi antennas are mounted. It could also be that one of you is running on 2.4GHz and the other is running on 5GHz, although most routers have the channel settings for the two bands controlled independently instead of together because they're completely unrelated. High-end routers are capable of operating on multiple channels simultaneously for just such a reason.

Location comes up in both the houses I hang out in. At the farm here, I'm in the basement and the internet is great down there, but my cell reception is terrible. Upstairs, the cell service improves but wireless on my phone is sketchy at best. The router is on a level roughly in between the two floors. Not sure why it likes down better than up.

My brother's place has fine internet on the main floor, but in the basement where I am it can drop from time to time, and it especially doesn't like it when I'm next to my bedroom wall. The walls are concrete down there, though not sure about the one in my bedroom.

Wireless repeaters are great for large houses or houses with poor line of sight to the router.

We're both on 2.4

I can't think of anything that would interfere with mine period...and hers? A wireless phone....but it wasn't a problem before we switched to a dual band modem. (And they do have their own separate channels when I checked)

Idk....I just know them saying we need a wifi extender is a load of crap.

We also changed something from mixed 20/40Mhz to just 20mhz....neither of us have been kicked yet? lol

@Quiet Man Cometh

Wifi signal does not go up as easily/as much as it will go down. That's why it is always suggested to put the wireless thing (modem or router) as high up as possible.

40MHz is a mode where the router can choose to use two side-by-side channels at once. Turning it off... MIGHT hypothetically help if one of the two channels is noisy but the router doesn't realize it? I'm not sure.

The interference is mostly going to be other wifi devices nearby -- if they're not talking to you, they might as well be noise.

It's not so much that wifi has an easier time going down as it is that there's more likely to be stuff in the way down low but if you put it up high there's less furniture between you and the router.

Channel 9 worked for a couple of days, but then internet dropped and I was kicked off of the modem again like when there was interference. But it with 20mhz lasted the longest out of my options.

Now to try channel 6. Though there are wireless things nearby that run on channel 6.

None of these problems started until we got a new modem. But we had to keep restarting our old one at least once a week. It was starting to really make me mad.

Note: a couple years back, I had a similar problem with another laptop....except that laptop I did take to other people's houses...guess what? The internet was fine there, but at home I'd get kicked all the time (except the modem/router was downstairs)

Most routers are crap, to be completely honest. You really do get what you pay for. If it's not one thing, it's another -- weak transmit power, not enough RAM, not configurable enough...

Question: I'm in the front room, living room next to me, mom behind the living room to the right (modem in a room above the living room) she has old (wired) speakers, like a sound system like thing for her laptop, could those mess with the signal?

Also, can you suggest a wifi extender? Time Warner/Spectrum says we need an expensive (imo) one. I will post shitty drawings of my house in a bit.

http://imgur.com/a/M3o0Q

The left is downstairs, the top left room is mine, AKA the only one with problems now.

The right is upstairs, the black dot is, give or take, where the modem is. The upstairs rooms are wired in. Downstairs is wireless.


Oh and all our wireless modems have been from the cable company so they should've all been shitty lol

Wired speakers? Probably not. Wireless might.

Do you run 802.11n or 802.11ac? If you only need n, then the Netgear EX2700 is well-recommended for its price. If you need ac, then its big brother the EX3700 doesn't cost much more.

And yes, they probably all were pretty crappy. :P You can just connect another router to it and turn off the built-in wifi. (Or you can buy your own cable modem; they're not that expensive, and it might be cheaper than renting one in the long run.)

We had something like that netgear....belkin version pretty much...did not help at all. In none of the three rooms downstairs...it wouldn't work. It would switch to the lights that meant either no connectivity or really shitty connectivity. Which Idk what we need because Idk what ps4/ps3 runs off of, but I think everything else does N I believe.

Mom won't buy a modem, unless they're like 20 dollars. And I agree with her on it due to one thing: Time Warner/Spectrum doesn't like helping you with their stuff....sometimes won't even help you get the modem you bought set up and so we wouldn't be able to use it (or they would say they don't support that modem).

But our modem has both 2.4 and 5....it's rare but sometimes someone can connect to that instead LOL

(I thought my laptop would be able to considering it came out a year or two ago...it's under a year old right now, and is advertised with ultrafast wifi....it can run through A which is not good enough for the modem to let it connect to 5ghz apparently D:)

We used to have a router, except it caps at 15 mbps....my laptop can pick up over 40 apparently....and I don't want to lose all that speed now that they're actually providing it once in awhile LOL

PS4 can run on n. PS3 is stuck with g, I think. Mixing 802.11g and 802.11n often ends up with everything having to downgrade to keep the two protocols from stepping on each others' toes. Probably better off running Ethernet for the PS3, if that's the only 802.11g device you're using.

Otherwise... The issues you're having are pretty standard. Wifi is pretty darn close to magic, when it comes down to it, and it's really picky.

PS3 is downstairs so that isn't feasible really (downstairs, modem upstairs), but it isn't running that often, just once in awhile. So that isn't a big deal imo.

Wifi still worked fine with the old arris. This is a new one...and I hate it >> << So I will be bitter all I want...like an old man XD

Oh, no, by all means, be cranky about it. XD But it's something where the only solution is to throw more money at it one way or another.

The solution is GIMME MY OLD MODEM BACK! D:

LOL

Can a different router do anything for a connection that is just flat unstable or weak because of the provider's own set-up? Up north it wasn't uncommon for people to downgrade their internet simply because the service providers did not have the capability of delivering faster internet. There was no point in paying for a better connection when the provider simply can't give it.

With ours, down grading just means even shittier speeds!

You never get what you pay for LOL

Somewhat. A good router can help improve network stability, although the connection speed might degrade in the process. However, as you imply, it can't do a whole lot if there's not a lot to work with, and it IS better to downgrade your service contract than to pay for service you can't get. IIRC they're actually not ALLOWED to sell you a package if they can't meet the guarantees by federal law, so if they can't get it working they're obligated to adjust your rates.

That said, you can't judge the connection quality based on wifi performance. The best test is to use Ethernet so that signal interference doesn't mess with your results.

It should be noted that Internet in apartments ALWAYS sucks because of how things are wired up and how many people are using wifi spectrum in the area. There's no two ways around it; during peak hours there's going to be congestion on both the wifi spectrum AND on the cable lines themselves.

Well, I think with Wifi, most of the time (without congestion) you should be able to get half of the speeds...IF your laptop/wireless thing can pick up those speeds.

We pay for 50 and once in awhile I'll get 40+ which is how I know it's possible for them to give me what I'm paying for even on wifi....but normally? Under 20....which is better than before, but I get kicked a lot D:

No, you should be able to pull the rated bandwidth. I've got an 802.11ac router rated for 1300Mbps, which is around 162MB/sec, which means that I should be able to pull my entire 60MB/sec data plan if I wanted to and still have wifi bandwidth to spare -- and in fact, speedtest.net says I'm pulling 64MB/sec down right now.

What I meant is at least half, but either way, Time Warner/Spectrum, no matter the problem is like GET WIFI EXTENDER D:

Well, they have a point: in most home installations, wifi interference is the most common cause of intermittent outages. Wifi range extenders combat noise by yelling louder. (In my house, it's distance and walls that are the problem, so my router is ALSO a high-power one so it reaches into my office.)

But most wifi extenders I can buy will also cut the speed in half. I am not doing that considering sometimes we only get 2mbps....which that speed alone drives me batshitt.

Also, anywhere I'd plug it in is further from the modem than me which makes no damn sense on it helping.

And after like awhile of it working, it completely kicks me off the modem after kicking me from the internet. Please wireless card, have an update.

The wifi extenders that operate on two separate channels won't cause that problem. But even if you cut the speed in half, a router rated for 300Mbps is going to have plenty of headroom for an uplink of only 30Mbps.

We only get internet speeds of a max of 60mbps (what we're now paying for) and we're not getting a router. A router would be useless. It would be upstairs right next to the modem. It wouldn't improve anything.

So a wifi extender is the only choice, but how is it going to be able to connect when my laptop can't?

And even if it does....if the internet is only giving us our normal 30mbps or less, the extenders available here will give our laptops only like 15mbps at best....and most of the time at half speed would be 4-10mbps

So I got a wifi checker that kind of sucks.

Channel 11 is used by 3 others in 'range' and one is using channel 6. No channel but 3 seems to work for me though. Wtf. I mean, most of the time the internet works, but sometimes >> <<

Also on the modem 20mhz vs 20/40mhz mode, what's the difference?

There's a router built into your modem. It still counts for the purposes of that discussion.

A wifi extender wouldn't work where your laptop doesn't. You put the extender somewhere that it DOES work so that your laptop can then be twice as far away.

The 20/40 mode means that it can try to use two side-by-side channels as one big faster channel.

I would be closer than the wifi extender could ever be due to the limitations of plug ins. I'm withing 20 feet of the modem. The extender cannot be any closer without being upstairs with the modem which would defeat the purpose a bit XD Which we did get an extender once and it was connecting even less than my laptop XD

Which it worked with the old arris....and the provider wants to pretend like the distance in the problem which has a few problems. As long as we're on certain channels, mom is fine and is further from the modem...and I've always been this distance away and have not always had this problem.

I've found out the provider is a bunch of idiots though. They replaced our phone modem....and activated the wifi in it that I cannot turn off...even going to the IP address, logged into that wifi only. So that probably explains why I was kicked fully off the internet earlier.

I just really hate Time Warner/Charter/Spectrum right now.

Have you tried escalating? If you've called them that many times and you haven't gotten things fixed, you shouldn't be dealing with first-tier support anymore. You should specifically ask for an escalation.

No matter who we get, if it deals with the internet, all they'll say is GET A WIFI EXTENDER!

Which pisses me off because it used to work and we tell them that and they're like that wouldn't change anything...get a wifi extender....when that is the ONLY thing that has changed.

If that's the only thing that changed, then buying a better router and disabling the modem's built-in one is going to be your best bet. They should be telling you that instead of telling you to get a wifi extender, which very well might make the problem worse by increasing the congestion on the channel.

Well, they say the problem is the distance so in their minds a router wouldn't help. Only a wifi extender would.

The problem is, to get a router that would put out over 15mbps...mom won't buy it and I don't have the money (she probably wouldn't buy a wifi extender either, but she'll fall for stuff like that due to the company saying we need it)