Basic Troubleshooting Tips

Learn the network help, basic troubleshooting techniques, connectivity problems, internet access error, anti virus tips, network cables and adaptors problem. In this tutorial, you will get a basic troubleshooting help regarding computer networking problems. Literally, there are 100s of network, software and hardware errors that can be generated in a computer network. But generally there are some basic errors which I will discuss here in this section. A computer network is comprised of two or more connecting computers to share data and resources. I have summarized the most important networking problems and troubleshooting techniques here.

Problem # 1. Network Disconnection

Solutions: If your network computer is disconnected from the network, the main causes of this problem are the cables, NIC card and the hub or switch. If you see that the status of your computer on the network appears in disconnection, you should check the network cables at both ends (one end in the NIC of your PC and second end in the hub or switch).

Problem # 2. Pinging failure.

Solutions: If your computer fails to ping the other computers on the network and server, you should check the cables at both ends, check the status of the NIC card (LED/green lights should be blinking. Check if the hub or switch is turned on and working properly. Additionally, you should check that the server or the other computer (whom you want to ping) is turned on and also working properly. If the problem is still there (i.e you can’t ping the other computer or the network server) re-plug the network cable at both ends and see if your computer given a unique IP address manually or by the DHCP server.

Problem # 3. Same IP Address error.

Solutions: If you get a duplicate IP address error, make sure that you are giving the unique IP address to every computer in your network. If you a network administrator of a Windows network and you are assigning the IP addresses manually, make sure that you are assigning the unique IP address from the same class such as class A, class B and class C to every computer in your network. The best solution of this problem is to configure and use DHCP server on your Windows 2000 server that automatically assigns IP addresses to all the computers in a network.

Problem # 4. Error while joining domain

Solutions: While joining a computer to a domain/network, make sure that you are providing the windows network administrator password/domain controller admin password, when it’s prompted while joining the computer to the network. Only domain administrators or network administrators can join a computer to a domain. Additionally, also make sure that you are giving the exact information such as domain name, unique computer name, unique ip address, subnet mask, default gateway, DHCP and DNS server IP addresses. If any of these things is missing or inaccurate, there are chances that you can get the error while joining the domain.

Problem # 5. Network Connectivity Problem.

Solutions: While making a computer a part of the network, make sure you have configured the computer properly and have provided all the necessary things as required. You should provide a unique IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, DNS address, and DHCP address. If you have provided all the things exactly, you can check your network configurations by this command at the command prompt. Go to Run > type cmd > type IPconfig/all. By using this windows based utility, you can see the whole configurations of your NIC adapter.

If there is something missing or if there is some error in the network configurations, you can change it by going to the properties tab of your network connection icon. Make sure that your IP address is from the same class as of the other computers in your computer network.

Problem # 6. Internet Connection

Solutions: If you are behind a proxy/firewall, make sure that you have configured the exact IP address of the default gateway or your network proxy server. In the internet explorer, you can configure this in the Tools > Internet options > Connections > LAN settings.

Problem # 7. Viruses, Spyware, Adware

Solutions: If you network server or any client computer is attacked by a internet virus, spyware, adware or any other malicious code, make sure that you have installed a accurate and up-to-date antivirus program on your server, gateway computer and all the client computers. Your gateway computer is directly exposed to the internet through your ISP so you should have very tight security measures on your critical computers such as server and gateway. The most commonly used antivirus programs are Norton Antivirus, Trend Micro Anti Virus, McAfee and some others.

Being a network administrator, you should put a check on the user’s activity on the internet, you can limit the access to the internet by the IP addresses of the computers or by their names and you can also limit the access to certain websites and applications.

Viruses through the emails are mostly likely to spread on all the computers so you should configure a email filtering software in your network. All the software applications, antivirus software, device drivers and other useful software applications on your network server and all the client computers should be up-to-dated and virus free. You should also set a periodic scan of all the computers in your network for any kind of viruses, spywares, adwares, trojen horses and other malicious things.