We have issues with our home wireless network. Some may be due to issues with our provider, Verizon FiOS, but there appear to be issues with how various components are hooked up, too – e.g., printers, router boosters, etc. I never said I was a home network genius!!! 
Issues with Speed, drop-outs, failed connections, etc., some chronic, some intermittent. I just tried to connect a new printer to the lap top sitting right next to it wirelessly and they wouldn’t handshake. Sigh. Using a direct USB, but really need to get to the bottom of this stuff.
What are ways that SDMB’ers have approached this?
- Try to get smart and do it yourself?
- Tap an expert friend or family member?
- Try to call your ISP, in my case Verizon, and have them come out and do an overall troubleshooting? (Heck, do they even do that? Also, I would be worried it would be too pricey, and only look at things from their POV, when I may have other issues)
- Call some place like Best Buy Geek Squad? I have found them adequate at best for simple installs.
- Find a local tech place that is highly recommended for this type of thing? What specifically would I look for?
- Check Craig’s List for one-off Expert Geeks (I say that with respect!) who sell their diagnostics services?
I have to assume this is a huge business for some person or company - what is the approach you have used???
Thanks in advance!
In this situation my parents usually call me to sort things out. In turn, I use a combination of google-fu and skills to work through the problem and isolate the issue, then work to neutralize the trouble.
In the situation you posted my first step would be to investigate the booster since if those aren’t configured correctly then they can generate a lot of noise. Not until the network is working reliably would I try to get the printer squared away, since the engineers that make printers have an undying hatred for us IT guys. Now that they have access to our wireless they’ve grown even more power hungry.
I have had users, searching for a wireless connection for their laptop, connect to a wireless printer and try to get on the web.
Have you considered cabling everything to test?
Yes. I am printing via direct USB cable just fine.
Booster: they can “generate a lot of noise”? THAT’s an example of stuff I would have no idea about and no clue how to deal with…
Wifi boosters or repeaters can be a bear to configure. Select the wrong port, wrong mode or wrong channel, and at best, it won’t help, and at worst, it becomes a “black hole” for things to connect to, but it has no connection to the WAN or internet. Great if you’re trying to set up a “honeypot” to catch hackers, but useless for a normal home net.
I’ll second the advice to remove the printer and the repeater. Strip it down to the bare minimum, which is probably the Verizon device and nothing else. Once that’s behaving, add the booster. If it’s set up properly, your laptop should be able to seamlessly connect to either the booster or the Verizon box as you carry it around the house.
Once that’s working, then tackle the [del]demon spawn[/del] printer.
No, I mean connect the devices on the network with network cable, and verify that everything works that way. The wireless may not be the problem.
If you’re technically inclined and have the time and patience to troubleshoot yourself, you should do so even if only to get more knowledge and experience. However, if you know this isn’t your cup of tea and want to save time and hassles, definitely get a friend or relative who knows what they are doing to help you out. The danger here is that if they don’t know what they’re doing, they could end up putting you in a worse situation that they themselves can’t resolve, leaving you high and dry. To counter this, you could get professional help who don’t get paid until they’ve done the job right, but this costs money.
I suppose I’m lucky because I work in an IT-related field and have just enough knowledge to keep things working at home and troubleshoot. I’m the person friends and family call when they have computer or internet problems and I’m usually more than happy to help out. It only gets frustrating when you tell them not to touch a certain setting and then they do.
As for your printer problem, it would help if you listed the hardware involved and described your set up. It could be something as simple as a bad network password or setting, or something more complicated like a manual entry of IP address or firewall setting.
Hmm. I think these helpful posts point out an issue for me: time and hassle. Part of me wants to list out components and such, and I suspect I would get some good inputs. But that trying to do this via messageboard trouble-shooting doesn’t feel efficient. That is why I am trying to understand if I can find Someone Who Knows a Guy (non-gender specific, mind you!)…