Intermittent outages can be caused by multiple things, from faulty hardware (modem, router, connections, device) to software-end issues (router settings, network adapter settings, firmware, driver).
If you made any changes to your setup (new devices, software updates, etc.), reverting those changes should be your first course of action. Besides that, trying to narrow down the cause is the best way to troubleshoot this issue.
Before you start,power cycle your modem, router, and PC. This’ll reset the modem’s connection to the ISP, wipe the router cache, and reload the network drivers, among other things. In doing so, you’ll easily cover a lot of ground in terms of potential causes and fixes. Do note that while restarting usually gets the internet working again, this fix is only temporary.
Narrow Down the Problem
Our goal is to figure out where exactly the connection is dropping. If the problem is only on one device, skip ahead toCase 3. But if the disconnections happen throughout the network, follow along with the guide normally.
Connect your PC directly to the modem with an Ethernet cable. If the internet still disconnects like this, the problem is with the modem or somewhere upstream.
This could mean the modem, the connection from the modem to the ISP’s nearby node to the CMTS, or server-end issues on the ISP’s side could be causing the disconnections.
Besides this, there’s not much you may do as an end-user. It’s best to inform your ISP about the situation and ask them for support.
Case 2: Modem to Router
If you faced no disconnections when directly connected to the modem, there are a few things to look at.
you may use a different Ethernet cable, verify that the connections aren’t loose, and update the router firmware. If those don’t help, you’ll have to replace the components and verify if that resolves the issue.
If you have a single router-modem combo device, first reseat the internet cable and verify that the connection isn’t loose. Besides that, you could tryupdating the device firmwareor try out a different device to ensure the hardware isn’t faulty.
Case 3: Router to Device
If things seem good on the modem side of your network, the problem could be with your router, the connection between the router and local devices (PC, phones), or the devices themselves.
As I said earlier, first verify whether the problem is on one device only, or on all devices in the network.
