Internet Connectivity Problem. Help Please

[Outdated]

I am giving serious consideration to bringing all the computer stuff up to the house.

That would work in the interim. And buying another cheap router is also a good idea, it doesn't take much to knock one out and it's handy to have a spare.

 

[Judge]

Starlink has its own modem and router that come with the initial installation. They are both white and sleek. Very stylish. These are installed at the house.

Then he who shall not be named ran a cable to my office and that’s where the office router is. It has been working fine like this for years. This is the router that went bad.

I’ve rebooted that router before, but this time it didn’t work. I liked this router because its password was exotictree followed by 3 digits. A fun pw for me because I like trees and it was easy to remember.

I’m sorry I can’t explain it better.

I am giving serious consideration to bringing all the computer stuff up to the house.

Ok, so the router was in the office separately located from the modem. Two distinct components. I see. LOL...yes, very different looking components!

You might try resetting the router. Sometimes rebooting just repeats the processing of possibly corrupted setup data. Routers can be very persnickety devices.

It may still be salvageable. Resetting brings the router back to its default settings. However to do this you must make sure you still have the original password from the manufacturer. There's a button to press and hold for at least 30 seconds to clear what is in memory.

Once you actually reset the router you want to provide a new password for it, and change whatever settings relative to the band, channel, etc.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Ok, so the router was in the office separately located from the modem. Two distinct components. I see. LOL...yes, very different looking components!

You might try resetting the router. Sometimes rebooting just repeats the processing of possibly corrupted setup data. Routers can be very persnickety devices.

It may still be salvageable. Resetting brings the router back to its default settings. However to do this you must make sure you still have the original password from the manufacturer. There's a button to press and hold for at least 30 seconds to clear what is in memory.

Once you actually reset the router you want to provide a new password for it, and change whatever settings relative to the band, channel, etc.

I actually did that resetting and it didn’t work. I don’t always call things by the correct name, because my brain has limited ability to hang on to words I don’t use often.

Thank you.

 

[Judge]

I actually did that resetting and it didn’t work. I don’t always call things by the correct name, because my brain has limited ability to hang on to words I don’t use often.

Thank you.

I see. Agreed, it if can't reset that sounds like the hardware is shot.

 

[MNAus]

Hmmm. I'm not beaten yet. So just to make sure we're speaking the same language.

The modem is the last thing that connects to the cable that goes out your house, if you have a wired connection. The job of the modem is to convert the signals on your internal network to a signal that heads off out to your service provider. But in your case that is built in to the starlink dish. So you probably don't have one. There will be an ethernet cable out the back of the dish connected to.....

The router. The router's job is to send data to the right places. They used to work with wired ports, but now, with WiFi, they will usually send data between devices connected over WiFi and off to the internet, and make sure the returning data goes to the right device. They also do stuff like separate your house network from the outside world so people can't go snooping around, as well as giving "addresses" to anything you connect (with a cable or with wifi) which is how the data is labelled when it's sent off to the internet and comes back.

Finally, if you have a place that's too far from the wifi router to get good reception, there might be an Access Point. These are really simple devices. Essentially their job is to extend the range of your wifi. They don't do much of interest and don't work without a router doing the clever stuff. Usually they will be on the same wifi network name as your main wifi, and will just send info back and forth along their connection to the router, and out over their antenna to the devices in that remote location. The router will take care of which data needs to be routed off its own wifi connection and which needs to be sent along the cable to the Access Point.

It's possible to have the Access Point have a different named network, or even to use more routers, but if you're not doing that, let's not worry about that.

Onto troubleshooting. We start at the edge of your network. Your connection in the house works, so the Starlink Antenna is good, and so is the routers basic functioning and WiFi. Perfect. Let's look at that office connection.

First check if you have a "Gen 3 Starlink Modem" or a Gen 1 or Gen 2 (google search of images, they look quite different.)

If you have a Gen 3 starlink setup, the back of your router will have the cable to the dish on the left (leave this one alone), power on the right, and an ethernet cable plugged in to one of the two ports in between. That's the one we're going to look at

If you have an older Starlink set-up, you'll see a box moulded onto the cable between router and dish. That will have an ethernet cable plugged in.

Look at that port closely. That cable should be the one that runs out to the office. Where the ethernet cable is plugged in, either side of the little plastic tab that keeps the plug in, are tiny lights. They should be flashing. If not, there is no connection to the office access point. None at all. It's unplugged, cable cut, a plug damaged, that port is damaged or the access point is broken. If you have a small ethernet cable handy and a laptop to plug it into, you can try plugging your laptop into that port. If it lights up, the router is happy. If you have a Gen 3 you can also try swapping the cable to the other central ethernet port (don't touch the cable to the dish). If it lights up, the other port is broken and you might want to consider getting that sorted with Starlink, but at least you will have internet in the office.

OK, so assuming you couldn't test that port with a laptop, or it worked fine when you did, or the lights were actually flashing by the port in the first place, next step is out to the office. Look where the ethernet cable goes into the access point. Are the little lights flashing? If not, and you have the laptop you can use, try taking the cable back to the house out of the access point and plugging it into the laptop. If it gives you internet or you're able to see the little flashy lights on you laptop (you might need to disconnect from wifi on your laptop to check for internet), the fault is with the Access Point. If it doesn't, you have something up with the cable or its plugs.

Last step, the access point. First up, can you connect to the wifi network on it (if you actually have signal from the house, that can be tricky to find out, you might need to go walking)? Here's the combo for access point:

- No wifi and no flashy lights by port, but cable is fine: very sad access point. Might be something trivial, but higher likelihood of it being borked.
- Wifi is good, no flashy lights by port, but cable is fine: Port is broken on Access Point or config is wrong. Test by plugging laptop into the Access Point to look for flashy lights by the port. If none, it's a very sad Access Point. If they light up it might be solvable.
- No wifi, but flashy lights all along on both Access Point and Router: Your Access Point is misconfigured somehow. It might have gone back to a default network set-up at some point. Check on the case of the Access point for the default settings printed on a little label. It will likely have a horrible default Access Point SSID (name) like Linksys AB23CD83729. On your laptop, see if that access point exists. If it does, connect and use the default password written on the case. IF you now have internet you need to config that Access Point again.
- Wifi is good, flashy lights all along: I have no idea but it suggests the Access point is somehow blocking traffic.


Sorry for long message, hope it helps.