How do you know if Router is cause of disconnects or ISP?

Wok City · April 23, 2019

So for the past 2-4 weeks I can not go 24 hours without having 1 or 2 periods of disconnections that last 5-10 minutes throughout the day.

During this period of time the internet is slow and constantly disconnects and reconnects.

My PC WiFi icon remains the same, it never says it has disconnected/no internet connection there (red cross/yellow exclamation mark). Any wirelss devices all do the same thing.

I have a modem to router setup and all the lights remain green through this time on modem and the router.

My ISP says they see no faults or drop outs with the line.

How can I pinpoint what my issue may be?

Testing via Ethernet isn't really an option, if this is maybe the only real option I'll have to go buy a cable long enough lol and hope the other half is happy having a cable running through the house.

Lurick · April 23, 2019

Who is your ISP?

What kind of internet do you have? (Cable, DSL, Fiber, etc)

What model modem and router do you have?

Is there any construction going on in the area or is the line coming into your house very old?

If the computers aren't saying disconnected or no internet then I would say that it's pretty safe to assume it's not with the router, not a guarantee mind you, but usually if the router is the one causing the disconnects then the devices will say no internet or just plain disconnect.

Do you have another local computer, NAS, etc. you can access by chance? I would say if you do, or even if you just have two computers available, get their local IP addresses (Start > Command Prompt > ifconfig) they will being with 192.168.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, or 10.x.x.x. When it happens go to one computer and open up the command prompt and type ping followed by the IP of the other computer and see what happens. If there are no drops or anything then I would say we're pretty good to rule out the router and I would place the issue on the ISP side of things.

schwellmo92 · April 23, 2019

Your router/modem should have it's own logging, check what it says at the time of a disconnect and start from there.

Donut417 · April 23, 2019

11 hours ago, Wok City said:

How can I pinpoint what my issue may be?

Depending on the ISP, many modems have a diagnostic page where you can check things. Im an Xfinity customer and if you use Cable Internet, all you have to do is check the logs in the modem and or check the signal pages to make sure you are within the Docsis spec as far as where signals need to be. DSL modems have similar pages, but I dont know how to use the info provided, so you would have to look that up.