Small Business Network Issues

Question

Howdy,

I work in a small bookstore -- we have been experiencing internet trouble for weeks now. It is primarily marked by excellent performance with sharp, discrete, few-second periods of disconnection followed by reconnection to fast speeds. We have replaced the hardware, including the router, cables, and switches within the network. All devices are connected via ethernet cables and any PCs are running Windows 10.

Pinging our router typically results in <1ms response; however, theres probably about 5% of responses claiming "Response timed out." We have double checked connections and cables leading to the router. To the eye, everything looks good. Furthermore, we have optimized the firewall for our communication needs, updated our routers firmware, scanned for viruses, among other troubleshooting.

It has large implications for some of our automated processes, like printing shipping labels and conducting card transactions -- it just takes forever.

What's more, and may be indicative of a problem, when I access the internet through our ATT hotspot as opposed to our Frontier line, I have the same problems. This is what bewilders me because I figured being on a different access point to the interntet, I'd have different results; however, that is not the case.

If anyone has any support or troubleshooting ideas, I'd love to chat and explore options. If I need to provide more information or diagnostic screenshots, please let me know as this is a learning experience for me.

Unfortunately the individual we've hired to complete the work and our in-house IT support are unable to diagnose the cause of the issue.

Thank you kindly for reading.

Answer 1

May need to get in touch with the ISP for assistance.

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Answer 2

You can only troubleshoot each network individually. Please don't forget to close up the thread by

Answer 3

Hi,

If I understand you correctly, you are pinging the local ip address of the router located on premises, and you are seeing lost packets, approximately 5%. Please confirm if my understanding is correct, because that's a huge red flag if true. Under normal circumstances you should be able to ping your local router without any loss, especially since you are connecting via Ethernet.

When you tested with the ATT hotspot, did you hook it to the same router as your other Internet connection?

Thanks.

Answer 4

Hello, thanks for the reply!

Your understanding is correct. At work, packet ping requests to the router time out about 5% of the time. For instance, when I do it at home, I receive no packet loss, as you say.

As far as the ATT hotspot, it was my understanding that we were drawing data from the ATT network to establish an internet connection. In other words, I was under the impression that being on the ATT hotspot was sort of a different service entire, so I should expect different results; however, as you may be able to tell, I am not very tech savvy. Maybe you can school me in how hotspots work? I will be sure to clarify exactly how our hotspots connect.

Thanks again for your replies!

Answer 5

Hello there,

Before jumping to troubleshooting steps, is all the devices connected to your network facing this disconnection, or only certain devices?

If they are only certain devices can you quickly check if there are any recent updates made to the devices?

Try to Release and renew the IP address for your computer:

-Go to Start, click All Programs, and open Accessories.
-Right click on Command Prompt in the Program list and then select Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click OK.
-In the Command Prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
ipconfig /release and hit Enter.
-Then type ipconfig /renew and hit Enter.
-Type Exit and hit Enter.

Reset Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

At the command prompt, copy and paste (or type) the following command, and then press ENTER:

netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt

Note If you do not want to specify a directory path for the log file, use the following command:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

3. Reboot the computer.

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