On many occasions when trying to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi there may be a problem. The most normal thing is that it is simply a bad coverage when we are very far from the access point. There may also be network saturation. But at other times we might run into the problem of not even being able to connect and navigate. We know that the Internet works, but our equipment does not connect. We are going to explain how to troubleshoot when Wi-Fi works and we cannot connect.
Troubleshoot when Wi-Fi works and your computer won’t connect
This is something that can happen to our computer at any given time. It could be a bad configuration, a conflict with the drivers, malware … The causes behind this problem are different. It could be something momentary or also permanent. We are going to explain some important points to be able to connect to Wi-Fi if we know that it works but we do not have a connection. A variety of solutions that could help us to have a normal connection and save any possible problems that may exist.
Check password
Something we can do is check that we have set the password correctly. It is a basic but very frequent failure. Maybe we have set the Wi-Fi password wrong, we have saved it and we do not have Internet for that reason. We connect from any other computer where we have put it correctly and it works.
It could also happen that we have the password correctly set, but we have chosen an incorrect encryption . We already know that there are different types of encryption, such as WEP, WPA2 … It is important that we are using the correct one and that there has not been a bad configuration that is causing problems with the key.
Forget network
Sometimes there could be a bad network configuration , some conflict not only with the password, and we can solve this by giving Forget network. To do this we have to go to the Wi-Fi icon on the taskbar, select the network that interests us, click with the second mouse button and click Stop remembering.
Once this is done we will simply have to connect again, putting the password again. In this way we could avoid some problems and that you can connect normally.
Change band
Are we connected to the wrong band ? Maybe that’s the problem. As we know, modern devices can connect to both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Each is better under certain circumstances.
If, for example, we are connected to the 5 GHz band and we are very far from the access point, there could be problems establishing the connection. Hence we have to switch to the other band and see if it works better. We could even become connected but without access to the network.
Restart router and computer
Another basic question is to simply restart both the router and our equipment. This solution is very common and it is always advisable to carry it out when we have a problem of this type. Sometimes the simplest turns out to be the most effective.
In the first case, you have to restart the router correctly: we must turn off the device and keep it that way for at least 30 seconds so that the restart is correct. Later we reconnect everything and see if the problem has been solved. If we turn it off and on instantly we will not be restarting properly. An IP conflict can occur, for example, and a reboot is required for the connection to be successfully established again.
Update the network card
It could also be that the network card drivers are out of date. If we have recently installed the operating system or a new version, there may be conflicts and that translates into problems connecting to Wi-Fi.
To update the network card we have to go to Start, we write Device Manager, then we enter Network Adapters and there we select the one that interests us, which would be the wireless network card. We click with the second mouse button and we give it to update. It is important that we always have the latest versions of the firmware installed, both to improve performance and also to avoid security problems that may affect us.
Reset the network
If all this that we have mentioned has not solved the problem, another point to consider is to reset the network. It is a simple process that we can carry out in Windows. To do this we have to go to Start, enter Settings, access Network and Internet, Status and there we look for the Network Reset option, which appears below.
What we achieve with this option is to remove and reset all network adapters and return to the original configuration. It allows us to avoid problems that we have caused that result in a malfunction of the connection.
Are we connected to an offline access point?
It is quite common that we have Wi-Fi amplifiers, Mesh systems and other devices that allow us to take the connection to other corners of the home. However, these access points sometimes do not work well. They may have a bad configuration, that they are very far from the router and therefore do not have a connection or any other problem that prevents other computers that connect from having a correct connection.
Therefore, we must check if we are connected to an access point that does not have a connection . We can try connecting to another access point or to the router itself. So we will see if the problem is not with that specific team, but with where we are connecting. One more step that we can easily carry out.
Check for malware
There are many security threats that can compromise our equipment and this could also affect the Wi-Fi network. If we know that the network works correctly but our equipment does not connect, one of the causes may be that we have some type of virus on the equipment.
We can use an antivirus to perform a deep scan and detect malicious software that is damaging the operation of the computer. There are many tools that we have at our disposal for this, both free and paid. However, our advice is to choose correctly what we are going to install on our system, since if we choose an inappropriate alternative we could not be protected correctly.
See if the firewall or antivirus is interfering
Although we have indicated that using security programs can be very useful to avoid problems of this type, we could also find the opposite case: that antivirus or firewall is interfering and does not allow us to connect.
In this case we would have to analyze the configuration and see if any of these programs are causing problems. We can simply choose to pause them momentarily and try to connect to Wi-Fi and see if this solves the problem. Once the error is detected, we could choose to install a different program or touch the configuration in some way that allows us to navigate normally.
VPN can cause network failure
One more point that we must take into account is if we are using a VPN . These types of tools are very useful and allow us to browse the Internet with more privacy. We can use them to hide the real IP address, for example. However, it could also be the cause of failures when trying to connect, in case there is a bad configuration.
We can momentarily pause the VPN and see if the problem is fixed. We can also see the configuration in case there are any wrongly configured parameters.
Therefore, these steps that we have been mentioning can help us avoid problems when connecting. If we see that we cannot connect to Wi-Fi but we know that it works, we can carry out these actions in a simple way. The objective is to be able to connect to the wireless network normally and have the Internet available.
