Wireless Connectivity Problems Making You Cry?

It can be really, really frustrating when the broadband in our homes fails to match up to what we expect.  Periodically, there can be peaks and troughs in broadband performance.  And although we should get a stable line, it isn’t always so.

What to Do If Your Broadband Connection Goes Down

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A wireless broadband connection is one of the best things ever invented. Having a wireless signal allows you to take your computer or mobile device wherever you want without having to disconnect from the Internet. This means that you can watch TV in the living room while you check your Facebook page or type your paper in your room where it is nice and quiet. However, what happens if you were to lose your broadband wireless connection? What steps can you take to ensure that you still have an Internet connection?

Make Sure That There Is Nothing Wrong With the Modem in the Computer

Most computers and mobile devices have a modem built into them. This allows you to connect to the Internet automatically as soon as you turn your mobile device on. If your computer is not connecting to the selected network, it could be that the modem inside your computer is not working. Attempt to troubleshoot the issue by running a network test on your computer. If other devices in your home are connecting to the Internet, you can be sure that there is a problem with your specific device. Make sure that you have the right network password and restart your computer to see if that helps.

Check the Router to Make Sure It Is Working Properly

If there are no issues with your computer, you should next check the router to see if there is an issue with your wireless signal. Unplug the router, wait roughly 10 seconds and then plug the router back in. This should allow you to get your signal back. While your router is not going to last forever, there is a greater chance that the Internet connection simply crashed. Many wireless broadband users have reported to their Internet provider that they have had intermittent crashes. The good news is that these issues should only last for a few minutes before resolving themselves.

You Can Always Hardwire an Internet Connection

If all else fails, you can always hard-wire a connection to your computer. All you have to do is connect an Ethernet cord to the back of your computer. The other end of the Ethernet cord will plug in to the back of the router. This will allow you to have a broadband connection even if you are not able to get a wireless signal. The only downside is that you are not going to be able to use your computer at a distance longer than your cable. You should prepare yourself to either move your laptop or move your router to a more convenient location. 

Wireless broadband allows you to use your mobile device or computer wherever you want. However, you can never be sure that your signal will work when you need it to. When your wireless signal is down, it is important to understand why it is down. Fortunately, it can be easy to troubleshoot your wireless issues and get back to using your computer wherever you want to.

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Eric Underhill acknowledges in this article that even broadband services like those from tesco broadband can sometimes let us down.

How to do a Simple LAN Cabling

Local Area network is the smallest example of the bigger internet, it can be located in a single room or across a whole building from the ground floors to the penthouse. Still it is also located in several building that is closely located which other ad can be accessible easily by a few seconds or minute of walking. In a Local Area Network computers and other peripherals devices can be shared and connection via cable and wireless means, even your smartphone can also be connected via a WIFI spot. But standard connection is still via the old cable, not just any cable but a group of smaller cable banded and twisted to form a larger cable called a Twisted Pair Cable.

The correct technical term for this cable is Category 5 cable (Cat 5). A cat 5 cable is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals. This type of cable is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet. It is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video. The cable is commonly connected using punch down blocks and modular connectors. Most Category 5 cables are unshielded, relying on the twisted pair design and differential signaling for noise rejection. Category 5 has been superseded by the Category 5e (enhanced) specification.

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Maximum cable segment length

Now  like all type of cable the CAT 5 cable use in LAN has also its maximum limit between devices such as computer and switch. According to the ANSI/TIA/EIA standard for category 5e copper cable (TIA/EIA 568-5-A), the maximum length for a cable segment is 100 meters (328 feet). If longer runs are required, the use of active hardware such as a repeater, or a switch, is necessary. The specifications for 10BASE-T networking specify a 100 meter length between active devices. This allows for 90 meters of fixed cabling, two connectors and two patch leads of 5 meters, one at each end.

Now that you know a few simple facts regarding the cable used in LAN, we need to know hoe to connect your basic computer to the central devices which could be a HUB or Switch. Actually there a four pairs of wire twisted inside the main cable. First we need to removed the main protective cover of the cable and expose those four pair of smaller wires twisted together.

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From the picture above you can see four pair of wires that was twisted which each other hence the name Twisted Pair. Actually there are several cable configuration for structured cabling for LAN but for today we are going to focus on the Computer and Hub/Switch connection the common one. Just like what i said before we need to untangle all the twisted pair of cables and we need to straighten them out. We need to do that, gently massage each cable after untangling them to straighten them. Do this until all the pairs have been straighten. 

This may be hard on your hand so  make sure not to rush it, there is a reason why we need to straighten them out as you will see later. Before we go any further, make sure that you have the following tools with you. A scissor and a Crimping tool, the scissor is going to be used for cutting the cable once we have configured them properly and the crimping tool is the one we are going to used to lock the cable inside the plastic connector called the RJ-45. Now lets do the cabling for a regular connection of computer to hub/switch connection. just follow this color coding.

Look for the first color in our sequence which has the the color pattern of White-Orange. There are only four main color code for the cable they are Orange, Green, Blue and Brown. The other cable is the alter ego for the main, that why you will see that for Orange there the White-Orange, Blue has White-Blue, Green has White-Green and Brown has White Brown. Now back to the sequence make sure to locate the cable in our sequence and that is the White-Orange. For a better and quick know how just look at the picture below.

LAN Cabling Pattern

Once you have achieved the color pattern shown on the picture above hols the twisted pair tightly and massage them to really straighten all the cable out. Now once all the cable have been straighten out, use the scissors to cut the the length of the cable so that external sleeve is just right inside the lock of the RJ-45 plastic connector when you insert all the cable pair together. This is a very delicate process, when inserting the cable inside the  RJ45 connector make sure that all the end part of the twisted par reach all the way to the wall of the inside part of the connector. 

cat5 [P1160038] (Photo credit: the_green_squirrel)

 

This is important because hen we lock the cable in place we need to make sure the the metal plate inside each canal of the RJ45 pierces the thin cover of the twisted pair so that there will be contact made between the metal plate and the cable. Now use the crimping tool to lock the cable inside the RJ45, we need to press hard and firmly to lock the cable and to make sure that the metal plate inside is touching the copper cable of each wire. Now do the same cable pattern on the other end of the cable where we need to put another RJ45 connector.

To check if the cable is working insert the other at the back of the PC while insert the other end on one of the port of the HUB/Switch. Please observe if you can connect to the internet or browse other computer on the LAN, better yet ping your LAN server. If all of this is unsuccessful or partially successful then you need to redo the cabling until you get the right connection and configuration.

Computer Hardware Familiarization Part-4

The Network Interface Card or NIC also Known as LAN Card is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Whereas network interface controllers were commonly implemented on expansion cards that plug into a computer bus, the low cost and ubiquity of the Ethernet standard means that most newer computers have a network interface built into the motherboard.

An Ethernet network controller typically has an 8P8C socket where the network cable is connected. Older NICs also supplied BNC, or AUI connections. A few LEDs inform the user of whether the network is active, and whether or not data transmission occurs. Ethernet network controllers typically support 10 Mbit/s Ethernet, 100 Mbit/s Ethernet, and 1000 Mbit/s Ethernet varieties. Such controllers are designated 10/100/1000 - this means they can support a notional maximum transfer rate of 10, 100 or 1000 Megabits per second.

The Network Interface Card

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Next is the  sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware inside the PC. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio, presentation, education and entertainment (games) and video projection. Many computers have sound capabilities built in, while others require additional expansion cards to provide for audio capability.

 The Sound Card

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 Early ISA bus sound-cards were half-duplex, meaning they couldn't record and play digitized sound simultaneously, mostly due to inferior card hardware. Later, ISA cards like the Sound Blaster AWE series and Plug-and-play Sound-blaster clones eventually became full-duplex and supported simultaneous recording and playback, but at the expense of using up two IRQ and DMA channels instead of one, making them no different from having two half-duplex sound cards in terms of configuration. Towards the end of the ISA bus' life, ISA sound cards started taking advantage of IRQ sharing, thus reducing the IRQs needed to one, but still needed two DMA channels. Many PCI bus cards do not have these limitations and are mostly full-duplex. It should also be noted that many modern PCI bus cards also do not require free DMA channels to operate.


Also, throughout the years, sound-cards have evolved in terms of digital audio sampling rate. Along the way, some cards started offering wave-table synthesis, which provides superior MIDI synthesis quality relative to the earlier OPL-based solutions, which uses FM-synthesis. Also, some higher end cards started having their own RAM and processor for user-definable sound samples and MIDI instruments as well as to offload audio processing from the CPU.