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Let's fix it.

Find your symptom below — each playbook lists the likely causes and the exact fixes, in the order a technician would try them.

Try this first

The universal first move: a clean power cycle

It's a cliché because it works — this clears stuck memory and forces your modem to renegotiate with the network. Solves roughly half of all connection complaints.

Step 1

Unplug the modem and router. Wait a full 30 seconds.

Step 2

Plug in the modem first. Wait until its lights are steady.

Step 3

Plug in the router. Give it two minutes to fully boot.

Step 4

Re-run the test and compare against your earlier result.

Playbooks

Pick your symptom

Downloads are slow everywhere

Common
Wi-Fi lossBackground trafficAging router
  1. 1Test wired, next to the router. If wired is fast, the problem is Wi-Fi — jump to the Wi-Fi playbook.
  2. 2Hunt background hogs: cloud backups, game updates, and smart TVs quietly streaming in menus.
  3. 3Check the router's age. Pre-2018 hardware often caps out far below modern plan speeds.
  4. 4Still slow on a wire? Log three timestamped results and take them to your ISP.

High ping & lag in games

Common
Wi-Fi interferenceDistant serversBufferbloat
  1. 1Go wired for gaming. Wi-Fi adds 5–20 ms of jitter even when it's behaving.
  2. 2Pick nearby game servers — every 1,000 km adds roughly 10 ms, physics won't negotiate.
  3. 3Stop uploads while playing. A saturated upload queues your game packets behind backup traffic.
  4. 4Enable SQM/QoS on your router if it has it — it tames bufferbloat dramatically.

Wi-Fi keeps dropping

Disruptive
Channel congestionOverheatingOld firmware
  1. 1Update the router firmware — drop-fix patches are the most common release note there is.
  2. 2Give it air. A router in a closed cabinet throttles itself when hot, then drops clients.
  3. 3Switch channels away from crowded defaults (1, 6, 11 on 2.4 GHz; auto-scan on 5 GHz).
  4. 4Drops persist on one device only? Update that device's network drivers before blaming the router.

No connection at all

Urgent
Area outageLoose cablingModem fault
  1. 1Check the modem lights. No "online" light means the problem is upstream of you.
  2. 2Confirm the outage on mobile data — your ISP's status page or app will list known incidents.
  3. 3Reseat every cable — coax, fiber, ethernet, power. Finger-tight is not tight.
  4. 4Full power cycle (see the flow above). Still dark after 10 minutes? Call the ISP.

Slow only in the evening

Annoying
Peak-hour congestionShared node
  1. 1Prove the pattern: test at 9 am and 9 pm for three days and note the gap.
  2. 2Schedule heavy jobs off-peak — backups and big downloads at 3 am don't feel congestion.
  3. 3A consistent 50%+ evening drop is worth escalating to your ISP with your logged results — cable nodes can be split.

Fast on phone, slow on laptop

Device-specific
Old driversVPN onExtensions
  1. 1The network is fine — one fast device proves it. The slow device is the suspect.
  2. 2Check for a forgotten VPN or proxy quietly rerouting everything.
  3. 3Update Wi-Fi drivers and try a different browser to rule out extensions.
  4. 4Old laptop? Its Wi-Fi chip may only speak slower standards — a USB Wi-Fi 6 adapter is a cheap fix.

Still stuck?

Tell us what you tried and what the test showed — we'll dig in with you.

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