Local Troubleshooting - Advanced

This guide is designed for people who want to try some advanced troubleshooting to fix their local device issues. Please be aware that the majority of this is outside of our support scope, and is purely provided to self diagnose common issues.

Verify network connection with Ping

Once your device has a valid IP address, you can use ping to verify network connectivity.

Run a Command Prompt window and use it to ping your router's IP address, normally 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) The command for this is "ping 192.168.1.1 -t" (assuming your router is a Hub+, otherwise change 192.168.1.1 to whatever your router's IP address is).

• If pinging your router repeatedly fails double check that your IP address and your router are on the same address range (this normally means all but the last digit on your IP address matches the router's). 

Check wireless-specific issues

If your wireless device still cannot connect, then it's time to consider wireless-specific problems.

The wireless router and device must use compatible 802.11 standards and the WiFi name must be correct. Use your router's admin page (accessible by entering the admin IP address and username/password found on the modem sticker into a web browser) to view wireless settings and compare them to your device's wireless connection parameters.

• If your WiFi name does not appear in the device's Available Networks list, check that you've enabled "SSID broadcast" on your router's settings. Alternatively, manually add the SSID to your device's Wireless Networks list, allowing devices to connect even if the SSID is hidden. Be sure to match the SSID exactly, including capitalisation.
• If your wireless device is older and only has a 802.11n or older standard compatible card, then it will be unable to join a wireless network broadcasting on the 5Ghz band. In which case, you need to search and attempt to join the 2.4Ghz wireless SSID instead.

Look for a security type mismatch

If a matched wireless client and router can "see" each other but still can't connect or exchange traffic, look for a security mismatch.

The client must support the security mode the router requires such as: Open WEP, WPA or WPA2. Unless the WLAN is open (unsecured), the router and client must also have (or dynamically receive) the same keys (passwords) used to encrypt traffic between them. Compare your router's WLAN security settings to your client's wireless connection properties to match them.

• If your router uses WPA2-Personal, set the client's authentication to WPA2-PSK, match the encryption type (AES) and enter the same passphrase on both devices. If you must support both WPA and WPA2 clients, set your AP or router to allow both TKIP and AES encryption.
• If your router uses WPA or WPA2-Enterprise, set the client's authentication to WPA or WPA2 respectively, match the encryption type.

Please note, if you are using any other form of security than the above WPA2-Personal or WPA2-Enterprise it's recommended you change your router to this security method. Networks should only use WEP or Open if this is absolutely neccessary.