Have I broken my router?

soolin

I asked over on the internet provider board whether anyone else was having problems with Virgin broadband, and it appears I am possibly alone in my problems, which leads me to a question about what to do next.

I am on the supposedly 8meg broadband service with Virgin and have been having connection problems all day yesterday and again today. I am using a wireless router which is my own and not supported by Virgin as I've had it for ages.

My problem is the light that says 'internet' on my router keeps going out (it usually just flickers) and of course that means I can't connect to the web. For the first few times it came back on in about 20 minutes but yesterday afternoon it went out for longer so I phoned Virgin to ask if there was a general broadband outtage or if it was just me. They told me that service was OK and that my area was running fine so I must have changed my settings or made some adjustments. We went through the whole scenario of do my phones work (yes) what lights are on (all but the internet one) and what changes have I made (none). In the end it was decided that I must have done something or else my box is broken, I was also told that unless I ran the router direct from the initial BT box by the front door they were surprised I got any connection at all!

Today my connection light is on and my settings show I am 'live' yet my speed is so slow I can't access many web sites at all as I just get timed out. It has just taken me three hours to navigate a few web pages in order to make some urgent adjustments to my book sales and now MSE and Ebay are just about the only sites I cna use at all, albeit slowly.

I am completely non techie, don't understand any of this but before I phone a man and pay a £50 call out tomorrow are there any simple things I could try to troubleshoot the problem?

TonyLisaP

If all else fails bypass your router and plug your machine directly into Virgins cable modem. See what happens there, if it is still slow then your line might have a problem.

jje_2

Reset button or little hole for a paper clip . Resets to factory default you will then need to log in to your router and set up again as per first set up with all your Virgin details .
So grab those on line if you dont have them to hand .Likewise whatever the log in to the router is ( looks like 192.168.1.1 or similar )

jje

soolin

TonyLisaP wrote: »

If all else fails bypass your router and plug your machine directly into Virgins cable modem. See what happens there, if it is still slow then your line might have a problem.

I did try all sorts of things yesterday, but I'm not even sure I have a modem in my PC as when I bought it I told the man in the hsop that I was using a plug in router.

soolin

jje wrote: »

Reset button or little hole for a paper clip . Resets to factory default you will then need to log in to your router and set up again as per first set up with all your Virgin details .
So grab those on line if you dont have them to hand .Likewise whatever the log in to the router is ( looks like 192.168.1.1 or similar )

jje

The problem is I never set this up in the first place as desptie telephone support from Linksys I just couldn't work out how to do it. The man that did set it up (and charged me £60) really struggled with it and so I haven't touched a thing since then which is probably over two years. Even when I changed my PC I only bought it when they assured me all I would have to do is just unplug all the cables from the old pC and put them into the new one, which I did and my wi fi was already working.

Virgin wouldn't supply details of anything when I last asked as the router is not one of theirs as it pre dates Virgin being wi fi enabled.

Edinburghlass_2

Is your new pc Vista? This might cause problems, I had to change my wireless router when I got a new laptop with Vista.

If it is your router that is causing the problem then you could buy a new one cheaper than paying someone to come out and look at it to then tell you that you need a new one.

soolin

No I'm not using Vista..I have enough problems as it is.

My OH has just made a similar suggestion to you Edilass. He said that PC World use to advertise a service where you could buy and have a wi fi router thingy installed for about the £60-£70 mark and he suggests I just do that rather than paying a call out charge and probably just being sold a new router anyway.

albertross_2

What speed do you get?

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

Is this adsl, via a BT line?

Is the Pc using a wired connection or wireless?

soolin

Sorry I can't edit my spelling mistakes anymore on MSE I just keep getting:

You do not have permission to perform this action. Please refresh the page and login before trying again.

but I don't think I can blame that on my router as I believe I saw a thread where other people were reporting the same thing.

soolin

albertross wrote: »

What speed do you get?

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

Nothing at all happens, all I get is 'testing download speed' and then it just sits there..so I've either broken it or It's so bad it is unrecordable.

I'll go try again.

soolin

I've done it again and I got:

Download Speed: 915 kbps (114.4 KB/sec ) Upload Speed: 372 kbps (46.5 KB/sec )

last time I did something similar when I had a good connection I was about the same for download but quite a bit better for upload.