When the computer stops connecting to the Internet

My company laptop stopped connecting to the Internet.  It was connected to Wifi, but my Outlook, Skype, the browsers were not responding.  The problem was that the computer was not finding the right parameters for IP and DNS server addresses.   This is how the technician fixed it for me.

Right-click the wi-fi icon at the right bottom corner of the screen and chose "open network and sharing center."

On the left side of the window that just opened, click on "Change adapter settings."  Find the computer icon that is active.  In my case, I see seven computer icons and one of them with "Wi-Fi" is highlighted.  Other icons say "disabled," "not connected," "network cable unplugged," etc.  Right-click on the right computer icon and choose "properties."

The window "Wi-Fi properties" will pop up.  Scroll down to Internet Protocol Version 4 and click on it.  If your setting is right, you will see the following two active/clicked on:

  • Obtain an IP address automatically
  • Obtain DNS server address automatically

If these were not selected (and instead the specific values were chosen), you need to select them.

I think the automatic setting means that the computer will flexibly and dynamically choose whatever IP address and DNS server address are relevant at the time of active connection.  In other words, the reason why the computer was not connecting to the Internet was that the specific values for the IP and DNS server addresses were imposed on  the computer for an unknown reason.

 

 

 

CategoriesIT

Leave a Reply