Network printer problems

[msdw24]

First I"m not computer savvy at all.

Here is the deal. We have two computers. We use TWcable internet. One computer is in another room. We've got a Linksys wireless broadband router. We have a Brother MFC-9840CDW printer/scanner/copier. We also have Vonage phone.

Leave the office on Friday night, everything seems to be working fine, no problems. Come to office this morning and neither computer can get online. I open IE and get that DNS error message, this is one both computers.

I don't know how, but my business partner gets our internet back up. Now we can't print, and then an hour later her internet connection is gone, and I'm still online though.

I can't work this way. I need a reliable way to fix these problems without having to spend 100-200 bucks to have someone come out to my office everytime we have a computer issue.

This is making me REALLY wish I would have bought a couple of Mac's.

Does anyone have any idea as to how I can fix these problems???

 

[14tokihorn]

you didn't say, but does your setup include some type of equip. from TWCable?... likely you do. If so, did your partner go to the TWCable equip?

This sounds like a non-PC problem and that leaves your LinkSys router.
Is this router old?
You could power down everything: PCs, the Linksys, and the printer.

Then power up *in this sequence*: 1st - the Linksys. 2nd - the PCs and printer.
If you do have a TWCable box, you could add that to the power-down list... just make it "1st", then the continue in said order. (not sure about TWCable equip...even if you do have one, maybe leave it alone, for now).

 

[msdw24]

We've got a small black TW box. My brother and business partner spent the last three hours working on it, and have seemed to fix it.

At one point we couldn't even see the router. I"m not sure what happend to cause that.

The router we bought off of Amazon, and it should be brand new.

My frustration is I have zero idea of where to look first when trying to solve a problem like this. I know what to do in my field of work, but when it comes to fixing the computer I'm dumb as a rock

What normally causes a bad connection with a wireless router? Where should I look in the future to try and figure out what went wrong?

 

[AUinAustin]

I usually try the easy stuff first. I reboot the TW cable modem. It seems to get flaky avery couple of months. If that doesn't work than I connect a PC directly to the TW box (in place of the wireless router). If that works I then replace the wireless router and only attach the PC via a cable. The last thing I do is attach the PC wirelessly. The first things I would look at are the cables. I keep extras in the closet. One hard bend and you can break a wire in the cable and get unpredictable results. In any of these cases I can llok at the network from a DOS prompt. THe command "ipconfig" will let me know if I am getting through.

 

[14tokihorn]

The link below is a small .exe which gives you a graphic of all* wireless devices in-and-around your office. Run from your PC.
Prerequisite: Your own wireless must be up and running.

The thought is you may have a neighbor who just added/changed their equipment... They may have moved their equip. around their office such that your antennae is now accepting a stronger (but disparate, with regard to performance) signal. That may have contributed to todays' issue - i.e. signal contention on the same wireless channel that you are on... that will be obvious after this little program is running.

If it proves that your wireless is sharing a channel with others, a change to another channel (done at the router) may be the answer. What I don't know is the capabilities of user configuration in the Linksys router.

NetStumbler
(decent troubleshooting tool)