Basic network troubleshooting.

Issue:
Basic network troubleshooting.

Cause:
If a computer is unable to connect to a network or see other computers on a network, it may be necessary to troubleshoot the network. A network may not work because of any of the below reasons. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Network card not connected properly. Bad network card drivers or software settings. Firewall preventing computers from seeing each other. Connection related issues. Bad network hardware.

Solution:
Because of the large variety of network configurations, operating systems, setup, etc... not all of the below information may apply to your network or operating system. If your computer is connected to a company or large network, or you are not the administrator of the network, it is recommended that if you are unable to resolve your issues after following the below recommendations that you contact the network administrator or company representative. Note: If you are being prompted for a Network password and do not know the password, Computer Hope is unable to assist users with obtaining a new or finding out the old password.

Verify connections / LEDs

Verify that the network cable is properly connected to the back of the computer. In addition, when checking the connection of the network cable, ensure that the LEDs on the network are properly illuminated. For example, a network card with a solid green LED or light usually indicates that the card is either connected or receiving a signal. Note: generally, when the green light is flashing, this is an indication of data being sent or received. If, however, the card does not have any lights or has orange or red lights, it is possible that either the card is bad, the card is not connected properly, or that the card is not receiving a signal from the network.

If you are on a small or local network and have the capability of checking a hub or switch, verify that the cables are properly connected and that the hub or switch has power.

Adapter resources
Ensure that if this is a new network card being installed into the computer that the card's resources are properly set and/or are not conflicting with any hardware in the computer. Users who are using Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP, verify that Device Manager has no conflicts or errors. Additional help and information about Device Manager and resources can be found on our Device Manager page.

Adapter functionality
Verify that the network card is capable of pinging or seeing itself by using the ping command. Windows / MS-DOS users ping the computer from a MS-DOS prompt. UNIX / Linux variant users ping the computer from the shell. To ping the card or the local host, type either Ping 127.0.0.1 Or Ping local host This should show a listing of replies from the network card. If you receive an error or if the transmission failed, it is likely that either the network card is not physically installed into the computer correctly, or that the card is bad.

Protocol
Verify that the correct protocols are installed on the computer. Most networks today will utilize TCP/IP, but may also utilize or require IPX/SPX and NetBEUI. Additional information and help with installing and reinstalling a network protocol can be found on document CH000470. When the TCP/IP protocol is installed, unless a DNS server or other computer assigns the IPX address, the user must specify an IP address as well as a Subnet Mask. To do this, follow the below instructions. 1. Click Start / Settings / Control Panel

2. Double-click the Network icon 3. Within the configuration tab double-click the TCP/IP protocol icon. Note: Do not click on the PPP or Dial-Up adapter, click on the network card adapter. 4. In the TCP/IP properties click the IP address tab 5. Select the option to specify an IP address 6. Enter the IP address and Subnet Mask address, an example of such an address could be: IP Address: 102.55.92.1 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.192 7. When specifying these values, the computers on the network must all have the same Subnet Mask and have a different IP Address. For example, when using the above values on one computer you would want to use an IP address of 102.55.92.2 on another computer and then specify the same Subnet Mask.

Firewall
If your computer network utilizes a firewall, ensure that all ports required are open. If possible, close the firewall software program or disconnect the computer from the firewall to ensure it is not causing the problem.

Additional time
In some cases it may take a computer some additional time to detect or see the network. If after booting the computer you are unable to see the network, give the computer 2-3 minutes to detect the network. Windows users may also want to try pressing the F5 (refresh) key when in Network Neighborhood to refresh the network connections and possibly detect the network.

Additional troubleshooting
If after following or verifying the above recommendations you are still unable to connect or see the network, attempt one or more of the below recommendations. If you have installed or are using TCP/IP as your protocol you can attempt to ping another computer's IP address to verify if the computer is able to send and receive data. To do this, Windows or MS-DOS users must be at a prompt and Linux / UNIX variant users must open or be at a shell. Once at the prompt assuming, that the address of the computer you wish to attempt to ping is 102.55.92.2, you would type:

Ping 102.55.92.2 If you receive a response back from this address (and it is a different computer), this demonstrates that the computer is communicating over the network. If you are still unable to connect or see the network, it is possible that other issues may be present. Another method of determining network issues is to use the tracert command if you are a MS-DOS or Windows user or the trace route command if you are a Linux / Unix variant user. To use this command you must be at the command prompt or shell. Once at the prompt, assuming that the address is again 102.55.92.2, type: tracert 102.55.92.2 or traceroute 102.55.92.2 This should begin listing the hops between the computer and network devices. When the connection fails, determine which device is causing the issue by reviewing the traceroute listing.
Diagnose and Repair The most convenient method comes by way of the Windows Vista Diagnose and Repair feature. IT Administrators can utilize this tool as an umbrella approach to issue resolution without the involved steps that are comprised by more complex troubleshooting. Access the Network and Sharing Center and go to Diagnose and Repair to use this feature. Windows Vista also labels this method Network Diagnostics. This implement pinpoints issues by inspecting your network connection/s. It will inform you of problems with network connection in basic terms. Go to the Event Viewer for detailed and comprehensive information. The Bottom-to-Top Method The OSI approach to network troubleshooting involves the layers that constitute a network. The so-called bottom layer denotes the physical layer of the network. System components such as cables, electrical signals, NIC interfaces, and switches are portions of the physical layer. Troubleshooting from that physical layer and moving up the OSI model will entail passing through the Ethernet protocol (data-link layer), the IP network (network layer), TCP (transport layer), and the Applications layer. Initiate the troubleshooting process through double-checking physical connections, such as: Network cable connection Operating link light on the NIC Connected and available NIC (seen within the Windows System) Power and operating link light on the Ethernet switch

Check for the same connections whether you have a wireless or wired network. Also, inspect the following conditions: Wireless Connection Status Verify the media state. Even with wireless media, the state should be enabled. Check that your computers physically links to a network before trying to connect. Access Connect to a Network to enable or disable connection to a wireless or dialup network. Windows 2008 Media Status On a computer linked to a network through an Ethernet connection (a Windows 08 server with Ethernet NIC, for example), check if the Ethernet media on your LAN connection is indeed enabled. Check the connection speed. If these verification of these connections is accomplished, move through the various OSI model components until the issues are identified. Sometimes, the issue is the end user. Many probable issues will concern testing the different layers of the OSI model, and apply to inspecting the TCP/IP network and transport layers. IP Addressing If the media state is enabled, the link light is operating, and the network connected physically, move up the OSI model. Move on to the IP addressing layer and skip the data-link as the addressing of the Ethernet Mac is usually not the concern. Inspect your IP addressing. Make certain that: the IP addressing is real and not automatically assigned, the IP address matches the network and default gateway addresses correctly, and the DNS Server IP and default gateway addresses are defined. Access the Network and Sharing Center. Supposing that the connection is viable, check the network interface by going to View Status. View your connection status. Go to Details for the default gateway, DNS servers, IP address, and subnet mask. If you connect without DNS servers or a default gateway, you cannot use your network connection as expected. These are not requisites, but one needs communication outside the local LAN, which requires a default gateway. Communicating with servers by name (Viber Informatik GmbH CH-6003 Luzern versus 1.1.1.1, for example) necessitates DNS server IPs. One may also use [IPCONFIG/ALL] to verify IP settings. With the presence of a valid default gateway, DNS servers, and an IP address, ping regularly to ensure communication occurs. Network Discovery and Filtering Ascending through the OSI model moves us to application layer and TCP layer filtering. The system filters outbound and inbound network connections with the use of firewalls. Firewalls are found within the computer, system, or in the network (for filtering connections to and from the Internet). Check the default Vista firewall. It is enabled on the default settings. Inspect other firewalls if you have them installed in your system.

The Windows Vista firewall will not block all access to your network. It is more likely to block specific inbound or outbound connections for particular applications. At this point, one has the option to turn off the Vista firewall to check if the concern is resolved (although on a public shared network, it would be risky to do so). Once the issue is fixed through this method, identify the port with which you will allow network traffic to go through. Check the Vista Firewall Access the Network and Sharing Center, and go to Windows Firewall to halt the firewall or add some exceptions. A user can also view the network status through this feature. If you can see that the Vista firewall is operative, this entails the blocking of those inbound connections that do not have exceptions. A notification should appear when a program or an application is blocked. Click on Change Settings to create an exception or try to render the firewall inoperative. When changing the Vista firewall settings, a user can turn off the firewall, view or change exceptions using the Exceptions tab, or check out the advanced features. If there are still issues as to computer access within the local network, one can inspect features other than the Windows firewall, such as the settings for Network Discovery. Access the Network and Sharing Center, and go to the section for Sharing and Discovery. Inspect the settings of options such as File Sharing and Network Discovery, among others. Network Troubleshooting plus Common Sense While the majority of this article mentions a few basic troubleshooting tips, some concerns require the application of a much overlooked tool: common sense. Here are a few more scenarios that may be the cause of any technical concerns: The networking issue at hand could be the result of any users modifying system contents. Connections to the network (physical or otherwise) may be incomplete or disabled. One malfunctioning or non-functioning application or server does not mean the loss of all network connectivity. Check and check again. Inspect one level at a time. If the checking of a previous layer proves that the same level functions as expected, move on to the next. Refrain from changing more than a few settings at a time, and then seeing if the issue is resolved you may not be able to pinpoint the exact problem, and cause even more issues in the process. Changing one setting may not resolve the concern. If this occurs, revert to the previous setting before trying another recourse. Winding Up If your system incorporates the Windows Vista system, then chances are good that you will need to troubleshoot eventually. Awareness, experience, and application of solid problem-solving methodology (such as the bottom-to-top style) will enable you to resolve any networking concerns efficiently.

Here you will learn network troubleshooting tips, fix tcp/ip errors, tcp/ip settings, internet connectivity errors, how to fix pc errors, lan connectivity issues, traceroute and ping commands. Whether your operating system is Windows or Linux network problems are likely to arise. Many times the network problems arisee due to improperly configured TCP/IP settings. Following is the basic checklist to identify and troubleshoot the basic networking errors. 1. First of all you should learn what stopped working server or client computer also see if the outage

affecting the other computers or only one.

2. If you server stopped working you should inform the users of the server and you should start working on fixing the error. 3. If a single client computer stopped working or disconnected from the network, ask the user of that computer that what recent changes cause the server to stop working such as newly installed software or games, service pakcs, internet software, new hardware or any other thing. 4. Check the physical network connectivity. The most network problems arise due to the physical layers failure 5. Check all the network cable connections. You can start at the NIC and check if the green light is blinking then check the hub and see if the computer is getting the link across the cable. 6. Get a cable tester to check the connectivity of the cables. 7. Finally starts pinging the network both Windows and Linux have the PING command. You can use ping command in this way start > Run > cmd > type "ping" then IP address of the other computer. How to Troubleshoot Connectivity problems 1. Use the ping command to test the basic connectivity. By using the ping command you can isolate network hardware problems and incompatible configurations. By using the path ping you can detect packet loss. 2. If you want to see the Ping's statistics then you ping -t command and press enter to continue and if you want to stop then press CTRL+BREAKTo watch Ping statistics, use the ping -t command. To see statistics and continue, press CTRL+BREAK. To stop, press CTRL+C. 3. If you remote system is across the delay link, such as satellite link responses may take longer. 4. Check the event logs for network card and other hardware and software configurations and connectivity related entries. 5. Check whether the NIC card is on the Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). 6. Check other computers that use the same gateway and are plugged into the same hub or switch and if these computers do not show any network connectivity problem then the problem is on the only one computer. 7. Contact the vendor of each NIC and motherboard and update the BIOS. 8. Replace the network adapter of the system with the good configured system and see if the same error arise again. SOME BASIC TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS Make sure that you have the same IP address schme, same subnet mask, same default gateway, same DNS and DHCP settings for all the computers in a network. Also make sure

that you can ping the other computers by their IP address as well as by their name. Make sure that you have the same workgroup or domain name for all the computers. For troubleshooting and administrative purposes turn off all the firewalls. Use the same administrative password for troubleshooting on all the computers. Try pinging the other computers this will test the TCP/IP connectivity. You can use the ping command in this format ping 10.100.100.1 and if you can get the reply from the other computer then the connectivity is ok and if get the time out error then there must me some error in the connectivity or error in configurations. Issues in Finding websites If you find any problem in finding the websites then ping the website name rather than the IP address and this will determine if your DNS entry is corret or working for example ping www.google.com. If this works then problem must be in your web browser due to misconfigurations. You should check the proxy server settings of your browsers and clear the cache and temporary internet files. Issues in Pinging a computer If you can't ping the computer by its name then check the DNS IP address in your network or dial-up setup. Issues in connecting to the other device on Local Area Network If you can ping all the other computers but are not allowed access then make sure that you are using the same user name and password assigned by the same domain controller. Try connecting to the computer using start > run > server name where serve name is the name of the server you want to connect to. Also add the computer name and it's IP address in the LMHOSTS file, which resides at Windows\System32\Drivers directory for Windows 2000 or XP. Issues in Network Connectivity. If a computer is unable to connect to a network or see other computers in a network it may be necessary to troubleshoot the network. Due to the following reasons you network may not work. 1. Network card not connected properly 2. Bad NIC card drive's settings 3. Firewall preventing computers from seeing each other. 4. Connection related issues. 5. Bad network hardware. Solution: Because of the large variety of the network configurations, setup, software, hardware operating systems etc not all the information may apply to your network or operating system. First of all verify that the network cable of each computer is properly connected, one end to the NIC card, which is plugged into the computer and one end to the Hub or

switch. Ensure that the green light is blinking on the NIC, this shows that the NIC is either receiving or sending the data. On the other hand if the card does not have any lights or has orange or red lights, then is possible that either the NIC adapter is bad or not connected properly. Make sure that the cables are properly connected to the hub or swtich. Make sure that the newly installed NIC adapter is not conflicting with the other NIC cards on the network and a unique IP address is assigned to each NIC card. If there is some conflict then the device manager may identify the conflicting card. Furthermore, make sure that the NIC is capable of pinging or seeing itself by the ping command. If you are on the TCP/IP network, make sure that the correct protocols are installed. If you are using a firewall, ensure all the ports required are open. While troubleshooting you can close the firewall program so that they there should not occur any conflict. TCP/IP Configuraitons Checking The first step in the troubleshooting process is to check the TCP/IP settings. You can check it by using the IPCONFIG/All command on the command prompt. You will see the configuration results. If you see a blank configuration for a card this means then the card is not assigned any IP address. You can assign the IP address manually or via DHCP server. If you are using the DHCP server for assigning the IP addresses then you can use the following commands to get and release the IP address. IPConfig/Release IPConfig/Renew IPConfig/All If the computer is still unalbe to obtain an IP address, then there are several things that can causing this problem such as bad network cable or NIC card, DHCP server might have assigned all the IP addresses from its pool, misconfigured TCP/IP settings, incorrect user name and password. You can try to add a new well configured machine to the replace the malfunctioning machine to see if the new machine is working with its settings. Also see if the driver of the NIC is properly installed or not. In case of driver's problem go to the vendor's website and install a new exact driver for the NIC.