Can't get on the internet (broadband)!

Probably the single most common problem I'm asked to resolve is the user who can't get on broadband internet ("my broadband isn't working!").

Here I'm going to attempt to explain the basic diagnostic steps I'd take to find out what's going wrong. Do this yourself and you could save yourself the cost of calling me out! But first - most importantly -if you're having problems getting on the internet then you won't be able to read this so be prepared and print it out and tuck it away somewhere safe!

There's a lot of text in this article so get yourself a nice cuppa and settle down... alternatively, just print it out and file it away until you need it. Of course, by then it'll be too late to ask about anything you didn't understand!

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Before we get going it's probably worth while saying that many problems are fixed by simply rebooting the router (not the main computer!), i.e. turn off the power, wait 5 seconds and then turn it on again. It'll spend a couple of minutes with its lights flashing but eventually will settle down and you might just find the problem has gone away!

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Let's start by establishing what environment I'm talking about - and note that the processes I'm describing refer to Windows XP or Windows 7. It's very similar on Vista but it's up to you to find out what Microsoft have decided to call the various things in order to find them!

I'm talking of a computer which connects to the internet using a router and also that it uses the normal networking setup.

This doesn't apply if you're using a broadband modem (common ones are Thompson Speedtouch, Sagem modem and BT Voyager 100 or 105). These are small boxes connected to your computer using a USB cable).

As for 'normal network setup', if you've changed the setting you'll probably know about it. What I'm describing isn't necessarily going to be totally correct if you've set a static IP address. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry - it means you probably haven't!

Step 1 - OK, so first thing, is your computer talking to the router?

To test this go to the Start button and select "Run...". This will bring up a box in which you can type a command so type in 'cmd' (without the quotes) and press enter. Now you'll get a bigger command window. In here type 'ipconfig' and press enter...

You should be presented with something like

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

There may be several such entries and it may mention 'wireless' in there somewhere (and Vista will look even more complicated!). What this is telling you (if it worked) is that your computer has an IP Address (think of it as a telephone number) of 192.168.0.2 and your ROUTER has an address of 192.168.0.1.

If that's showing OK, then it's a good start - your computer looks like it is talking to the router but we'll just confirm that so type in
ping 192.168.0.1 [but replace this number with the default gatway address above] and press enter

now you should get something like

Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=245
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=245
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=245
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=245

Assuming that you do get this then the computer and the router are indeed talking to one another and so you can move to Step 2!

Still here then? So you didn't get that stuff se we need to know why it's not talking to the router. Possible causes are (including the really simple stuff)...

• Your computer's network card isn't turned on
• Your computer's network card isn't working
• The cable between computer and router is unplugged
• The cable between computer and router is defective
• The router isn't turned on (sort this one out yourself!)
  
• The router isn't working
• There's something wrong with the wireless link
  

Until now I've not mentioned wireless connections and they, of course, introduce a whole new set of problems so if you're not connecting to the router at this stage, try it without the wireless and connect the computer directly to the router with an ethernet cable (one probably arrived with your router) then see if the broadband is working and if not, go back and repeat step 1.

If it is then go down to the later section about Wireless Problems.

So let's look at the possible problems but first have a look at the router. There should be a light on saying something like 'LAN' which, if you unplug the ethernet cable, would go out. If this light isn't on then one of the following may be the cause...

Network card not turned on? To check this, go to the Start button and select control panel and double click on 'Network Connections'. You should see someting like "Local Area Connection ..... Connected". If it says "Disabled" then right click on it and select "Enable" then go back to step 1.

Network card isn't working? It could be a simple case that the hardware's failed!

The cable between computer and router is unplugged? If you need me to help you sort this problem then maybe you should try a little gardening instead!

The cable between computer and router is defective? Try and get hold on another cable to try. It could have become defective.

If the LAN light IS on then there seems to be a problem with the router and it's now getting very tricky to sort this out yourself! It could be the configuration of the router (DHCP settings and other such technical terms!) or simply that the router has stopped working.

Step 2 - Is the router talking to the internet?

In the command window (which you've still got open) type the following...
ping 216.239.59.104
and press enter

Hopefully you should see something like

Pinging 216.239.59.104 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=245
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=245
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=245
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.104:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 39ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 40ms

If you do, that's great because it means that the router IS talking to the internet so go to step 3.

If you didn't get those 'ping' responses then it would seem that your router isn't talking to the internet.

Step 3 - Are full internet services available?

This time, in the command window (which you've still got open) type the following...
ping google.co.uk
and press enter

Hopefully you should see something like

Pinging google.co.uk with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=245
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=245
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=245
Reply from 216.239.59.104: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.104:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 39ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 40ms

If you do, that's again great because it means that not only is the router talking to the internet but that it's able to do all the stuff it needs to access web pages.

Sadly, it also means that you've reached the end of the road because the internet IS working fully, there must be something else stopping your connection and that's a REALLY big topic!

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Wireless Problems
OK, we'll assume that you're here because it all works fine with a wired connection but you can't use your wireless link.

Again there are a number of possible causes...

Is the router wireless switched on? There should be an indicator light on the router, maybe with a symbol of an aerial showing that it's on. If it's not on you're going to have to refer to the section later on, "getting inside the router"!

Is your computer wireless switched on? In the case of laptops there may be a physical switch or button to turn it on or it may be done by pressing a function key (find the key - maybe with a picture of an aerial) and hold down the 'Fn' key while pressing this key.

Are you detecting a wireless signal? Assuming both ends of the wireless system are switched on, you should see an icon in the task bar of your screen (bottom right hand corner) telling you something about the wireless connection. Maybe it's saying (if you hover over it) "Not-connected, right click for more options". Equally you could look in Network Connections via the control panel as described in Step 1, "Network card not turned on". Right click and select View Available Wireless Networks. Hopefully you'll see your router there - if not and the router wireless is on, then you've got a problem that's just gone outside the scope of this article! If you can see your router then you ARE detecting its wireless signal!

Have you using the correct security details? In order to connect to your router (which SHOULD have security turned on!) you would need to provide a security key. Hopefully you know what this is and sometimes you'll find it on a label on the router itself (look for words like WEP key or WPA-PSK key), if not then you need to head for the section "getting inside the router". Assuming you do, then all you should need to do is select the network you want to connect to and click on a 'connect' button and follow what it tells you to do. If all goes well, this will make the connection but if not, did you get the key wrong? Perhaps you need to move on to "getting inside the router"!

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Getting Inside the Router

By "getting inside" I don't mean actually opening it up! The router is actually a computer in its own right and provides a web-like interface which you access with your web browser (hopefully FireFox, but maybe you're still pinning your hopes on Internet Explorer). If you're doing this because you can't get a wireless connection then, obviously, you're going to have to connect your computer to the router using a cable!

You remember from step 1 you discovered the IP address of the router ... you typed ipconfig and got some information about the gateway address? Well that's the address you'll need now. In my example it was 192.168.0.1. In the address field of your browser (that's where you normally type www.somewebsite.com), type that address, eg. 192.168.0.1.

You may be presented with a status page but most probably you'll be asked for a user name and password. The trouble is that I don't know what they are and you almost certainly don't either! All routers are different and the password may have been changed by whoever set it up (even so, all would not be lost), however there are a number of well known things to try...

with a user name of 'admin', try it with no password and then with 'admin', 'password' and 'root'. If none of those work try with a user name of 'root' and try all those again. Also, if you've got broadband from sky, the password might well be 'sky'.

Hopefully one of these combinations will have got you in so we'll look at what you might be able to discover but if you're not able to get in and don't know the password you may have to reset the router and setup all your broadband details all over again. This means you'll need your broadband account name and password (and if you're with AOL you'll need to know the screen name that was used for the router connection - that's different from your normal AOL screen names!). Once you've gathered all that information then you need to reset the router and, again, routers have different ways of doing this so you probably need to find the instructions that came with it (which MAY tell you), otherwise you could find that information on the internet - if only you had a connection. WARNING if you don't know your broadband password, step away from the computer! It's presumably stored in the router and there are usually ways of retrieving it - but not if you've 'had a go' and changed it!

Inside the Router you'll see all manner of things but because they're all different, they all look different so you'll have to just poke around and see if you can find something that matches what I'm describing. I'm basing my descriptions on a Netgear DG834 router, which is fairly common.

Information about the internet connection

Probably something about this willl be shown when you forst connect to the router but if not look for links called "status". You'll see references to WAN and ADSL - that's the internet connection - and LAN which is the connection between your computer and the router.

Amongst the various status items you might find 'Connected' which probably means that it thinks it's talking to the outside world. More importantly you should find things like 'Gateway IP address' and 'Domain Name Servers' (DNS Servers) and these should be listing IP addresses a bit like you've seen in step 1, for example 62.241.161.237, 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. If you are getting those type of numbers then it almost certainly IS connecting OK.

Wireless Settings - Is it ON?

Often under a heading of 'Advanced' or maybe somewhere lese there would be a section about the Wireless. The first thing you need to check is that it is actually switched on. Look for something like 'Enable Wireless Access Point'.

Wireless Secrity Settings

Somewhere you should be able to get at the wireless security settings. These will allow you to turn security on or off and, if on, will usually allow you to select the type of security WEP, or WPA-PSK. Presumably it will already be set and you should be able to see the key. If not, you can always save a new one. A WEP key uses the characters 0-9 and A-F and is not (normally) case sensitive, a WPA key allows you to use any characters you want and IS case sensitive. Also the length of a WEP key is determined by the WEP type:- WEP 64 bit requires 10 characters, WEP 128 bit rewuires 26 charaters.



Well that's about it. Hopefully after all that at worst you'll have some idea where the problem lies and, at best, you might even have fixed it!

Fell free to post any comments about this article and let me know if any bits are confusing. This isn't a particularly difficult area but it IS rather complex - there are lots of bits to it.

Eventually this artcile will get put on my website at www.callonken.co.uk with all the other useful stuff.

Windows XP - The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE

This article is not for the faint of heart! It is very technical and may help those doing technical support out there. If you're in the 'normal user' category, I wouldn't suggest trying this yourself! You could totally kill your system!!

The problem:

You're getting the BSOD and a message indicating that a registry file is corrupt. There are a number of these messages and you may have found your way to the Microsoft knowledgebase article KB307545. This outlines a rather long winded and very convoluted procedure to try and effect a repair using the tools that Microsoft provides. It also requires (1) that it is not an OEM installed OS and (2) that you have an original XP dsk availble. This solution doesn't have either of those contraints!

The Solution:

What the KB article is all about is getting hold of the latest backed up set of registry files and replacing the broken ones with these. In order to do this you need to start up the machine using something like Ultimate Boot CD (search Google for UBCD or UBCD4Win) - anything that allows you to boot up the machine and get access to the file system.

The files you need are the ones which are saved during a restore point creation and can be found in a folder called something like...

C:\System Volume Information\_restore{B33F2D25-8664-459C-AE54-C8D699E59CB4}\RP180\snapshot

(RP180, for example, is the restore point you want to use - look at dates and times of the folders).

There are 5 files (registry hives) that you need to copy over and these are

_REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM

They need to be copied to where the registry files live and this is C:\windows\system32\config.

Before replacing the old registry files (DEFAULT, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM and SAM) it's a good idea to move the old ones to a new folder somewhere or rename them (for example rename SAM as xSAM, etc) so you can go back to where you were if all goes belly-up!

Then rename the restored files to have the correct filenames, for example, rename _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE to be SOFTWARE.

And that's it! What you've done is perform a system restore without using Windows itself.

Of course, I've left out a lot of "how to" details that you ought to know already - like how to navigate through filig systes, copy and rename files, etc.. Like I said, this is a technical article and if you can't fill in the gaps yourself then you shouldn't be trying this!

Just one pointer though... if you're doing this from a Windows boot you may have problems getting into the "System Volume Information" folder because of access rights. If so, have a look at the Microsoft KB article KB309531 which describes ways (including use of CACLS) to get access.

XP Service Pack 3 and Automatic Updates

Windows service pack 3 (SP3) has been the subject of a lot of discontent since it seems to contain a lot of errors!

In particular

• Internet connectivity fails when using some routers
• False positives are generated by Norton Internet Security and other security applications
• Device Manager settings go missing, especially in connection with using Norton Antivirus
• Repeated rebooting occurs on machines using an AMD processor
• You can't install any new updates
• Third-party visual styles encounter problems

As if that weren't enough, if you have automatic updates turned on, you WILL get SP3 whether you want it or not! (did you get hit by the autopmatic update which killed ZoneAlarm and so you couldn't get on the internet?)

Fortunately it is possible to disable getting SP3 installed automatically, even though you've got automatic updates turned on.

Microsoft has a tool for suppressing the automatic installation of the service pack. The Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit won't prevent you from downloading SP3 manually from the company's site, nor will it stop you from installing the patches from a CD or DVD. All it does is stop the service pack from being installed via Windows' Automatic Updates.

Surf over to Microsoft's Service Pack Blocker download page and click the Download button for SPBlockerTools.exe. Click Yes to accept the license agreement and type in the path to the folder where the files will be stored (click the Browse button and navigate to the folder if you want to avoid typing).

Now open the folder containing the extracted files and double-click SPBlockingTool.exe. A command prompt window appears for a few moments and displays the statement "Action successfully completed." Unfortunately, that doesn't tell you very much. The action the message refers to is the addition of a Registry entry instructing Windows Update not to send you SP3. (The same setting on Vista blocks SP1.)

SPAM - the continuing problem

One of the worst problems - perhaps the worst - on the internet these days is that of SPAM.

For those of you not (yet) afflicted with this 'disease', SPAM is vary simply emails that you didn't expect to receive and don't want. They may be trying to sell you a variety of performance enhancing drugs, a load of watches or simply trying to scare you into believing that your bank account is at risk.

For those badly afflicted, this may amount to over 1,000 unwanted emails EVERY DAY! So if you went on holiday for a couple of weeks, you might find 15,000 emails waiting for you, most of which you didn't want!

So that's the problem but what's the solution?

Well, the bad news is that there isn't an easy solution simply because you can't really define that a message IS spam! What may be spam for one person may not be for another. For example, you may receive what is probably a spam email and send it to me for analysis. When you send it to me it's no longer spam; it's now what I want to receive!

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Even so there are still things which can be done to make the situation a bit more controllable.

I'm going to consider the problem in three parts; avoiding it arriving, getting rid of it before you download it and handling it once it gets to your computer.

Avoiding it Arriving

In order to see if we can avoid it arriving, it's useful to understand why it did arrive.

The fundamental problem is that your email address has been discovered by spam generators. This may be because your email address appears on a website or it may be because one of your 'friends' has sent out one of those, "send this to everyone in your mailbox" messages and by doing so has let everyone know your email address!

If your email address appears on a website, the web page can be recoded so that it is not so easy to extract it so if that's the case, contact Ken and he'll help you out - the methods for doing this are beyond the scope of this blog!

As for your friends letting all and sundry know what your email address is, short of changing your friends, there's probably not much that can be done about it, although a quiet word to your friend may help.

Even so, all may not be lost. Perhaps you have an email address something like ken@ourhouse.fsnet.co.uk. Many internet providers give you this form of 'infinite' email addresses where, in fact, anyname@ourhouse.fsnet.co.uk would get to you. Spam generators tend to generate email addresses based on the domain it's found (ourhouse.fsnet.co.uk) and may generate all sorts of addresses like ayxxi@..., 123ab@..., etc. so the first step is to limit your email system so that it simply doesn't allow anything other than the email address you actually want to use. In the case ig fsnet quoted in the example (later Wanadoo and now Orange) they provide some basic filtering capabilities so that you could set up a rule which says something like

If it's TO someone
who is NOT ken@ourhouse.fsnet.co.uk
then delete it

Getting rid of it before you download it

OK, so despite your best efforts, it's still got to your mail box, so what now?

There are two ways of tackling this problem; one is to pay someone else to help (i.e. use an external spam filter like www.spamdefy.com) and one is to control it from your email client. These can be thought of the easy way and the hard way!

Using the easy way, you sign up for an external spam filter system and that feeds your emails through its own processing, identifying emails which contain viruses, emails which come from known bad senders and those which look as though they are 'baddies'. Even so, you still have to sign on to its website to monitor your emails to make sure that nothing which you wanted has been blocked, and to let it know what are 'bad' emails.

The second (hard) approach is to set up filters in your email client and the details of this are beyond the scope of this blog. What basically will happen is that you'll set your email client to download just the headers of the messages (i.e. the bits which say what the subject is, who it's to and who it's from) and then define various rules to decide whether you will delete the original message or download it fully because it looks OK. This approach is not for the fainthearted!

Handling it once it gets to your computer

So despite your best efforts, you've still got spam arriving, so what now?

In this case I'd suggest a (free) spam filtering piece of software be installed, and one such product is Spamihilator (www.spamihilator.com). This is fairly simple to understand and works on the idea that emails downloaded go through it and you train it to understand what you think are spam emails and what are OK. Eventually it gets pretty good at making the right decisions and the email that arrives in your inbox is mostly what you want. Again, you do have to check it regularly to make sure that nothing has been blocked that you wanted!

As ever, if you have any problems or questions about this topic or you need help setting up an effective spam blocking system, just Call on Ken!

New Look Website

The CallOnKen Website has been restyled to look, hopefully, a bit more up to date.

All the old information is still there plus some new stuff and you should find any links you've got saved away will still work.

Broadband connections and Microfilters

OK, let's see if I can get you to save yourself some money on calling me out!

This is about the importance of microfilters to a broadband connection.

The microfilter is the little plastic box which plugs into your phone line and then your phone and/or broadband modem plugs into that.
So what does it do and why is it important?

When you talk on the phone your voice is converted into electrical signals which run at a particular frequency. Think of it as someone playing a tune on a double bass.

The broadband connection also uses electrical signals but these run at a higher frequency; that's a bit like someone playing a tune on a violin.

Both of these can be going on at the same time, just like our two string players, but it gets a bit confusing so in order to hear the individual tunes properly you'd need some sort of filter. You could use a filter which blocks higher frequencies then you'd hear the double bass OK, or you could use one which blocks low frequencies so you could hear the violin.

It's the same with the microfilter. The telephone connection doesn't want to hear any of the broadband stuff and the broadband doesn't want to have the telephone interfere with its connection! The microfilter keeps these two signals apart.

So what happens if it's missing?

Maybe you're already guessing this - or maybe you've already experienced it...

Without a filter, if your broadband is running and you use the phone you'll get a VERY noisy phone call! If you're happily using the broadband and someone phones you, you're likely to lose the broadband connection.

So now the crunch... how many and where?

How many depends on your telephone setup. I used to have quite a few installed but then I reorganised my 'phone wiring so now I just need one!

The basic rules are:

1. Every piece of phone equipment must go through a filter at some point.
2. The broadband signal must go through one (and only one) filter
   

That first rule doesn't necessarily mean that every phone needs its own filter; you could have a single filter going to a splitter which runs several phones. And remember that a telephone device includes anything which plugs into the phone system; fax machines, answer machines, credit card machines, even your old computer modem, if you still use that.

So consider the following situation:

Two phones and a fax machine each have a filter and the broadband connection also goes into one of those filters.

Of course, if the extension sockets themselves ran off a filter, the number of filters required would be reduced as in the next layout:

Now all the phone connections are brought together at a single point (the splitter) and that goes through the single microfilter.

Getting the filters right is very important but, with a little thought and understanding, this isn't too tricky. If you don't get it right, your system simply won't work properly!

But remember it's only actual devices that need filters - an empty extension socket doesn't matter... until you plug something into it!

Spam Emails (Phishing for Data)

I know I keep going on about spam emails and how to recognise the nonsense that abounds but I thought it was time to reinforce this with an example which is going around. I'll explain some ways to spot that it's a fake and reveal something that helps to protect you!

This particular email is titled "Unable to send your reward cheque" and contains the following text...

Dear Nationwide Online customer,

The bank congratulates you as a devouted customer and rewards you with a shopping cheque of 500 pounds, but

We were unable to send your reward cheque due to a possible error your home address information.

This might be due to either of the following reasons:

- A recent change in your personal information .
- Submitting invalid information during the initial sign up process.

Consequently, we placed a temporary restriction on your account. We did this to protect your account from any fraudulent activity.

Please verify your information :

https://www.nationwide.co.uk

Thank you,

Nationwide Customer Service

It's probably immediately obvious that it's a fake, even if I were a Nationwide customer!

However, let's look a some of the phrasing...

"...congratulates you as a devouted customer...", so what's this devouted?? devoted or devout, perhaps, but real emails would be checked fo such things (not that Nationwide would ever send such an email anyway!)

"...due to a possible error in your home address information..." - how do they know it's wrong? If I were a customer of theirs then they'd certainly have correct address information, so this is a load of twaddle!

"...due to ...reasons... change in your personal information" - again, how do they know?,

"...invalid... during...sign up" - OK, if they can tell it was invalid, why was it allowed during sign-up. Just doesn't make sense.

Then comes the total nonsense; "...placed a temporary restriction on your account. We did this to protect your account from any fraudulent activity...". But hold on, this is TOTALLY wrong.

1. None of the reasons quoted included that someone had got into the account, so there's no need to worry about fraudulent activity
2. They were worrying because they couldn't send me 500 squids because my address was wrong - so now they're suspending my account?
3. Would they really do this to a "devouted" customer; suspend the account just because they couldn't send you £500

Anyway, if they wanted to give you £500, why not just credit the account? After all, they'd hope that you pay in any cheque that they sent you!

The biggest clue of all comes when you hover over (don't click on it!) the link https://www.nationwide.co.uk and note in the status area that it actually shows http://74.164.186.235/~test/nnn.html, showing the link to be a total fake.

So what about protection?

Well, if you're using Thunderbird as your email client (and if you're using Outlook Express, then it's time to change!), the first thing is that it displays "Thunderbird thinks that this message might be an email scam"
.

The next thing is that if you DO click on that silly link it pops up the message, "Thunderbird thinks this site is suspicious....."