Hello,
I was wondering if some more technologically-savvy Dopers could help me with this quandry. I recently moved and set up the same wireless router and modem (netgear and motorola surfboard, respectively) that I’ve been using forever. My computer connects fine. However, oddly, my friend’s computer will say that it’s connected to wifi but then if you try to go to a webpage it will just take forever and then time out. My iPhone does the same thing. These devices both work find on other wi-fi networks and my laptop works fine at home. All the devices are Apple devices. We have never encountered this issue before. Any thoughts?
Have you rebooted the router?
Sounds very much like a DNS issue.
See if the affected devices can go the the router’s configuration page, and if so, see what the DNS settings are.
We tried rebooting with no success
beowulff, what would we be looking for on the router’s configuration page with regard to the DNS settings?
Generally, the router should get the correct DNS from the cable modem. See if the DNS is an address that your ISP recommends (do a google search).
Also, it might be worthwhile to do a hard reset on the router, and start over. You can usually do that by pushing the reset button down for 10 seconds. Doing that will require setting up your WiFi network again, and resetting all your devices to join it.
Select the network and forget it on your phone. Then search for it and reconnect. If that works repeat.
Have you named the network with a meaningful name or just used the string the device provided? I have found using the same network name and password allows me to change devices and locations without any secondary devices requiring adjustments.
Hmm, so the DNS address on my phone was not the one my ISP recommended. I changed the DNS to the correct one but my phone still times out, even after restarting the phone. Anything else I should be doing? I can reset the router, but I tried that before and it didn’t help. Thank you so much for your help!
don’t ask’s suggestion to forget the network and re-add it is worth a try, but I’ve only seen that help in cases where the phone won’t connect at all.
When you reset the router, did you have to go in and re-configure the network?
I also tried using the google DNS (8.8.8.8) without success as well.
No, I don’t think I did. I also just now tried a reset of the network settings without success on iphone.
Does it matter that the default for the router and DNS are the same number, and when I change the DNS it is no longer the same as as the router?
Some basic troubleshooting first: do they connect when in the same room as the router? Have you tried resetting both the router and the modem to their default settings? Don’t just check the DNS.
Make sure the router is set to provide enough IP addresses.
You may also be running into interference issues if their are lots of other WiFi sources in the area, you can try different channels, or different bands. It is possible that the low band frequency is saturated and your computer can connect with the newer high band, but the other devices only have low band.
That’s what I was thinking.
You could try assigning an IP manually to see if that helps.
Another things which would cause this is a bad wifi credential exchange
-
The reason I asked if you had to re-configure your network is to see if you completely reset your router. If it’s completely reset, the network will default to something basic like “netgear” with no encryption (usually). You then need to go into the router’s configuration page and start from scratch.
-
On your devices, the DNS entry should (usually) be the same address as the router, which means the router is providing DNS services (which it gets from the modem). If the router didn’t get the correct DNS from the modem, than any device that is connected to it will not be able to resolve URLs.
-
You can test if it’s a DNS problem by putting in 8.8.8.8 for the DNS on an affected device - this is google’s DNS, and if that gets the device to start working, you know where to look for the problem.