"This page cannot be loaded." No matter how you slice it, a lack of internet can be seriously frustrating. When you're having one of those days just trying to get online, there are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot your network connection to figure out the problem. Read on as we talk about network troubleshooting, along with a common solution: updating the firmware on your router.

Troubleshooting process

The troubleshooting process shares a great deal with the traditional scientific method. Frustrated users are simply trying to isolate the source of grief. I had a problem recently that sparked this article: my internet was running sluggishly to start loading pages, but once the pages started loading, it was working fine.

There are a plethura of different parts of my setup that could fail. Let me outline the basic setup, and then we can talk about how I narrowed it down.

My home network has a connection from Earthlink (via Time Warner Cable) that connects to the internet. That connection is offered through a standard Docsis cable modem. The cable modem connects to a Linksys WRT54G home router (V5) on the other side, which then provides wired connectivity to my Xbox360 and my media center laptop, and wireless coverage to my iPod touch and my wife's laptop, with my work laptop interchangably going wired or wireless at any given time. This setup is pretty prototypical for a home with multiple machines. Homes with only one machine would likely nix the home router in favor of a direct connection to the cable box.

At this stage of the game, my symptoms immediately led me to believe the problem was simply my machine. I figured since it had been on for a while, it might be a simple problem with how it was loading domain names. I restarted my computer — which should typically be your number one troubleshooting step — to no avail. The problem continued to persist.

My next step was to confirm whether the problem was local to my home network. I tried to use my media center computer, which exhibited some of the same behaviors. I then thought perhaps one of the computers on my network was using an application that might be trying to resolve too many domain names, so I turned off all the machines on my network except for my iPod touch. Even then, I had the the same issues, despite the iPod being the only device on the network.

I then made a mistake that I'd admonish other users not to make. Instead of continuing to grow the diagnosis link by link, I jumped straight past my router and went to the internet level. I figured that my DNS servers, the servers which translate domain names like obsessable.com into numbers, were the slow ones and weren't responding properly. I hastily changed my domain name servers from the free ones I had been using courtesy of OpenDNS. I switched those back to the default ones provided by Earthlink (which have some frustrating search pages that I don't particularly appreciate). The switch fixed my problem on some websites, but not others.

I started wondering if there was some sort of international conspiracy happening online, though without a word on my Twitter feed, I doubted the work of cyber criminals.

I reassessed my troubleshooting process and revealed the one link I had failed to quality assure: the router. All this time, I had been using WiFi to connect to the internet, so the router could have been the cause of all of the problems. I plugged in to an ethernet connection, yet continued to experience the same problems.

I then plugged my computer directly into my cable modem. Voila! The problems were gone. So, through my use of the troubleshooting process, I had identified that the router was the cause of my woes.

How to fix it?

While I had identified the culprit, I still didn't know the exact problem. Why would my router be slowly sending DNS responses to my machine, but load at full speed once the DNS was clear? Rather than ask more questions, I took the first and most simple approach: restart the router. I unplugged the power, waited five or ten seconds, and then plugged in the power again. Still nothing.

I then headed to Linksys's website and proceeded to further research the issue. WIthout a definitive answer on their forums, and no longer being able to stand the slow speed, I took the next logical step and updated the firmware.

Routers and other hardware devices have a level of software that defines exactly how the hardware works. Since it's more than just integrated chips and wires now, electronics need a basic level of an operating system to perform regular tasks. Linksys consistently updates its firmware to newer versions to fix bugs in previous iterations. I could only hope that there was some sort of bug that Linksys hopefully identified that might have been fixed by the firmware update.

I downloaded the firmware for my router, which is V5 of the Linksys WRT54G series, and proceeded to head to my router's administration page.

To find the way to log in to a router, head to your network control panel, or in my case on the Mac a network preference pane, and find the entry for "default gateway" and open that up in a web browser.

Under the "Administration" menu, there is a firmware upgrade option. I then proceeded to upload the file I had downloaded from Linksys's website, and the system started updating the firmware. The router instructed me to let the process finish completely, since an interruption in the process can mean an unusable router.

Once the file was uploaded, the router restarted and I held my breath as I opened a web browser, hoping the problem would be fixed.

I loaded Obsessable.com, and bam! Back to normal!

While the firmware update solution fixed my problems, it won't necessarily fix everyone's issues. What I'd encourage is a simple scientific approach to fixing a computer, so you can at least have a starting point when you're trying to figure out the problem. Start by trying to isolate one variable at a time and test that particular part of the system to make sure it's functioning properly. If you suspect it might be your ethernet cable, try a different cable. If you suspect something amiss with your network setup on one particular machine, try testing with a different machine. Continue isolating different parts of the system as best as possible until you zero in on which aspect of the system might be most likely to be the point of failure. Hopefully this story helps you move from a place of having to ask someone to help you troubleshoot your problems to being able to start troubleshooting them yourself.

[Image: Jugbo]