Router Support and Network Troubleshooting for Work From Home

The internet is an extremely crucial resource for entertainment but it becomes truly indispensable when most of us are ‘working from home’. Suppose you’re on an important video call or in a team meeting and the network blips, it can be disastrous. Moreover, you need fast and seamless internet connectivity for working from home; however, there is no IT department there to help you out. To ensure that you don’t face any problems related to network connectivity, you should regularly keep checking your router for any problems. In case you aren’t able to fix it, you can call up a technical support team to provide you router support.

Coming to the flip side, if you are facing issues with your network, there is no need to worry as you can fix minor problems by yourself without spending a buck. The Wi-Fi connection in your home can slow down or even stop completely. This might put a halt to your office work; you definitely don’t want that. We understand this and to solve your problems we have curated some basic fixes that can solve most of your troubles.

Basic Troubleshooting and Router Support:

Here are some quick fixes to solve any minor issues with your Wi-Fi router and internet connection. These should work for you unless your router is bonkers. Take a look:

1. Get in range for better connectivity: Check the signal status on your computer, if it is poor or average then get closer to your router to receive better signals and Wi-Fi connectivity on your PC.
2. Update the router software/firmware: Sometimes, the router software gets outdated, login to your router and update its firmware version.
3. Use ‘Smart Connect’ on your router: Use this option to get better bandwidth on your PC and cut off the unnecessary connections to your router.
4. Upgrade your router, unplug extra devices: Remember to switch off/unplug all the extra connections to the Wi-Fi. For ex: home voice assistant devices, smart TVs etc.
5. Minimize your internet load: Shut down the extra bandwidth sucking apps on your PC and the background processes that keep using the internet. You will see your internet speed increasing after this.
6. Use wires to connect to the router: You can also hardwire your PC to the router to mitigate any Wi-Fi connection problems. It will give you a faster internet speed without any pauses due to connection troubles.

The above mentioned fixes can take care of most troubles related to routers, however there are a few problems that cannot be solved with these fixes. If your router is too old and doesn’t support the latest Wi-Fi protocol, you will have to buy a new one. You may also have to subscribe to a faster internet plan to work from home and carry out high end tasks on the internet. Extenders/repeaters can also be used to reach the dark spots in your house. These amplify your Wi-Fi signal and provide your PC a better signal strength even in the farthest corner of your home.

We hope your ‘work from home’ will become problem free after this. At least, your router troubles will go away. If you’re still stuck, try contacting a technical assistance team at 1-800-986-4764 to guide you and solve your problems.

Originally Published At : https://medium.com/@mariawlarson625/router-support-and-network-troubleshooting-for-work-from-home-47200401bc0

Ereader Support: Wifi/Network Connection Problems

E-readers like Kindle are devices that allow users to read books online and also download them onto these devices for offline reading. Such devices are very popular and useful to those who love to read. However, sometimes one can face a few problems which render the device useless or cause trouble in connecting to the internet or using the device normally.

One of the most common problems is Kindle not connecting to wifi. This practically blocks you from using the device as you need the internet to access books, your library and to download new books to read and share information. If you have been facing this issue, then you can relax now as you have arrived at the right place.You will get step by step directions for troubleshooting your e-reader device for any Wi-Fi connection related problems. By the time you are done reading and implementing these steps, your problem will be solved and you will be able to go back to enjoying reading again.

Being unable to connect your e-reader device can be frustrating. Here is a short checklist to perform before you begin troubleshooting the device itself.

1. Check your Wi-Fi connection, is it turned on?
2. Are you entering the correct password?
3. Does your Wi-Fi connection allow other devices to connect?
4. Is your device on aeroplane/flight mode?
5. Are you within your Wi-Fi connection’s range?

After you have performed all the above checks and the problem still isn’t solved, bring out your device and follow the troubleshooting steps mentioned below:

1. Turn off the Wi-Fi connection option on your device and turn it back on.

2. Restart your Kindle/e-reader device. After turning it back ‘on’, try connecting with the wireless network. If still unable to connect, try the ‘forget network’ option and then rescan for your Wi-Fi network and try connecting.

3. Reboot the modem, if the Wi-Fi connection doesn’t show up, try scanning for available Wi-Fi networks. If it still doesn’t show up, add it manually under settings on your device and connect.

4. Check if your internet connection is working properly, in case it is not and if the problem doesn’t get solved by a ‘router reboot,’ contacting your internet provider will be a good idea.

Hopefully, this solves your problem. However, if the problem still persists, try resetting your e-reader to factory settings (this solves almost all problems). If still facing issues, contact a technical support service at 1–800–986–4764 to guide you through the troubleshooting process.

Originally Published At : https://medium.com/@mariawlarson625/ereader-support-wifi-network-connection-problems-c1f80b7cbe08

Reasons to Update Your Web Browser

Web browsers are what are called as ‘bundle software’, they are advanced, multi-tasking applications that support functions like browsing the web, downloading files, viewing/editing documents, running any type of content and for communicating via internet. Apart from these major roles, browsers have grown in their functionality way beyond our imagination.

Browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer for that matter are all software in the end and like every software, they do keep rolling their updates and improved versions. These updates are crucial changes in code of these applications and are meant to fix major security and functional loopholes. If it is still not clear why you need to update your web browser, read on as we give you 4 major reasons to do it regularly:

1. Safety First: Old browsers have rusted defense mechanisms, their outdated encryption modules and security definitions surrender in-front of security breaches and cyber-attacks. To decrease the vulnerability and avoid risk from such attacks, keep your browser up to date. An outdated browser eventually slows down the system, thus creating more problems for you. Keep yourbrowser compatible with the constantly changing security measures.

2. Speed Browsing: Speed is an essential attribute in web browsing. Old, outdated browsers tend to slow down since they fail to keep up with the latest security protocols and algorithms, this in-turn causes the computer to slow down as all the resources get allocated to the browser. As a result, the PC hangs in addition to ‘your struggle to run’ a cranky browser. Update your browser and be the speed demon you are on the internet. An updated browser gives you a faster and quick response website experience, being capable of running the latest technology being used in the writing website-code.

3. Update for More: Software updates are not just about better themes, adding new buttons or simply for changing the logo. These updates carry crucial additions to code that make your browser faster, secure and efficient. Add-ons, plugins and extensions make a browser do so much more. Now-a-days you just have to open a browser window and you can listen to music, edit documents, watch a movie and browser web all in the browser. An old updated browser misses out these added features and just sits there on your desktop like an inefficient, useless program.

4. Update for Everything: Beyond everything, update your browser to maximize your browsing experience. If you wish to experience the cutting edge innovations in web designing and development or to get immersed in 3D visualizations, then hurry up and update your browser now! Modern websites do not support older versions of browsers because of technical mismatch. Don’t let a puny update keep you from becoming the Thanos of internet.

The best way to be free of the worry of updating browsers is to use the ‘automatic updates’ option. If this option is flipped to ‘on’, your browser will update itself whenever an update is released. For some complicated problems you need to contact browser support at 1–800–986–4764, for everything else there is an UPDATE.

[Solved] How to fix Google Chrome ‘not responding’? (2020 Update)

Google Chrome is recognised by most internet users as the fastest and most efficient web browser out there. Chrome is not just a web browser, rather an array of applications that let us perform several functions inside the browser itself. Despite all this, Chrome is not 100% bug free and may behave erratically, crashing or freezing mid-work making it a challenge to work on your PC.

There could be a number of reasons behind Chrome being unresponsive, crashing or freezing. Thus, it becomes essential to go for troubleshooting Chrome in a very methodological manner. This article will walk you through all the basic fixes to a few advanced ones to sort the ‘not responding’ issue in Google Chrome web browser.

First, we will take a look at some of the commonly reported problems and their fix:

1. Chrome not responding: Browser refuses to respond, does not accept commands or any input. In this situation, do not give repeated commands, wait for it to come around.

2. Unresponsive on startup: Browser does not launch on clicking the icon, repeated attempts to start Chrome fail. Caused because of malicious software or 3rd party apps infecting your PC. The problem can be fixed by cleaning the system after a full scan.

3. Chrome keeps crashing frequently: Chrome keeps crashing, shuts down by itself. To resolve the glitch, clear the browsing history, cache memory and any other data which is making the browser slow. Recheck if the problem is fixed.

4. Google Chrome keeps freezing: Browser keeps freezing mid-work. Try closing other apps and extra tabs on your browser. If this doesn’t work, try uninstalling Chrome and then installing it again after restarting your PC.

These were some basic fixes, if the problem still persists, try some of the following advanced methods until one of them works for you.

1. Check your internet: Check if your internet connection is working and inspect the wires from the router to your PC.

2. Chrome not closed properly, running in background: Most of the times we simply close Chrome by clicking the little cross in the corner of the window, but Chrome process keeps running in the background. Overtime these idle Chrome processes accumulate and use up all the RAM, making your PC slow and browser unresponsive. To close all the chrome.exe processes running in the background, open Task Manager> End Process (chrome.exe)

3. Reset settings/ check app conflicts: Open settings in Chrome, click advance to see all settings, scroll to Reset and clean up section, click on: update or remove incompatible applications. You can also reset Chrome to default settings here.

4. Clear browser history, cookies & cache: Clear cookies, browsing history and cache data from settings menu.

5. Uninstall and reinstall: Uninstall then reinstall Chrome; else, if a simple repair fixes the problem, it becomes much easier.

6. Disable all Chrome extensions: Under settings> more tools> extensions, disable all active extensions as they load up and make your browser functioning very heavy to process.

7. Disable firewall for chrome: If windows or any other Antivirus application’s firewall is a blocking Google Chrome, it won’t work. Allow Chrome to bypass the firewall by adding it to the exception list.

8. Clear DNS cache data: Open command prompt and type the following commands and hit enter after each line

1. ipconfig/flushdns
2. netsh winsock reset

9. Update Google Chrome: Usually Chrome auto-updates to the latest version, however you can check if your browser is updated or not from the help option in the browser.

10. Check proxy settings: Go to proxy under network and internet settings and disable all proxy. Sometimes proxy settings used for safety interfere with the normal functioning of Chrome.

11. Disable hardware acceleration: Hardware acceleration feature off loads extra work to hardware other than CPU which may cause interference with Chrome’s functioning. To disable hardware acceleration, go to Menu > Settings > Advanced > Disable Use hardware acceleration option.

Google Chrome is an excellent browser but sometimes fails to perform, however blame cannot always be put on it. As a user you also need to do a few things to avoid such errors and malfunctions. Here’s a short checklist to keep in mind before you go back to browsing internet.

1. Always keep your Google Chrome updated.
2. Regularly clear cache, browsing history and cookies.
3. Scan your PC for malware and viruses periodically.
4. Beware of 3rd party apps, and malicious websites.

Hopefully, this solves your Google Chrome not responding issue or any other Chrome troubles you have been having. If you have any queries, questions, remarks or suggestions please comment below or you can call at 1–800–986–4764. Thanks for reading!

Source : https://medium.com/@mariawlarson625/how-to-fix-google-chrome-not-responding-1a06770536c