Everything went off and then it went on again
January 16, 2018 11:55 AM Subscribe
A momentary power outage -- you know, the ones that last 1 second -- hit my house a couple days ago. Since then, every time my laptop wakes up, it wants to take forever to connect to wireless. It does, after about 45 seconds, but this is annoying the hell out of me. What is this about?
I am super computer-challenged, but here's what we've got:
My MacBook Air which is having the trouble.
Several iPhone 6's, not having trouble.
A PS4, not having trouble.
A MacMini, with a wired connection, not having trouble.
A MacBook Pro, not having trouble.
We have a Netgear thingy (modem? router?) -- all lights green
a TP-Link thingy (modem? router?) -- all lights doing that flashing green thing which means they're working
and a TP-Link extender halfway across the house -- all lights blue, meaning it's working
Thoughts about what I can do to fix this?
I am super computer-challenged, but here's what we've got:
My MacBook Air which is having the trouble.
Several iPhone 6's, not having trouble.
A PS4, not having trouble.
A MacMini, with a wired connection, not having trouble.
A MacBook Pro, not having trouble.
We have a Netgear thingy (modem? router?) -- all lights green
a TP-Link thingy (modem? router?) -- all lights doing that flashing green thing which means they're working
and a TP-Link extender halfway across the house -- all lights blue, meaning it's working
Thoughts about what I can do to fix this?
Reboot your router and the link things a couple of times, too. Haven't the faintest idea why techonology-wise, but at a previous residence, our power was kinda flaky, and every.single.damn.time the power blinked, our router behaved very closely to what you described - working for some devices (usually the phones) but not for others (usually the computers). Once in a while, it made it really, really grumpy, and I'd have to hard reset the darn thing.
All this despite everything being connected to really good surge protectors, because of the aforementioned "the power is continually unstable" nonsense. (Yes, really, at least once or twice a week, and the whole darn small rural neighborhood put up with it). If it was a "hard" enough blink, it made the stove mad, too.)
posted by stormyteal at 12:21 PM on January 16, 2018
All this despite everything being connected to really good surge protectors, because of the aforementioned "the power is continually unstable" nonsense. (Yes, really, at least once or twice a week, and the whole darn small rural neighborhood put up with it). If it was a "hard" enough blink, it made the stove mad, too.)
posted by stormyteal at 12:21 PM on January 16, 2018
Another stab in the dark is to do a SMC Reset on the MacBook.
posted by zamboni at 1:18 PM on January 16, 2018
posted by zamboni at 1:18 PM on January 16, 2018
Response by poster: Thank you for the suggestions so far.
posted by BlahLaLa at 4:41 PM on January 16, 2018
posted by BlahLaLa at 4:41 PM on January 16, 2018
All this despite everything being connected to really good surge protectors
Surge protectors are designed to limit the amount of damage caused by momentary excesses of power. They can't do anything about momentary absences. For those, you need a UPS.
Laptops and phones each have a UPS built in, in the form of their internal rechargeable battery, but your modem and router don't. If power outages happen often enough to cause frequent wifi grief, a cheap low-end UPS will be plenty to keep the networking gear afloat.
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 PM on January 16, 2018
Surge protectors are designed to limit the amount of damage caused by momentary excesses of power. They can't do anything about momentary absences. For those, you need a UPS.
Laptops and phones each have a UPS built in, in the form of their internal rechargeable battery, but your modem and router don't. If power outages happen often enough to cause frequent wifi grief, a cheap low-end UPS will be plenty to keep the networking gear afloat.
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 PM on January 16, 2018
the ones that last 1 second
are also the ones that tend to cause the most trouble for consumer-grade gear powered by wall warts.
There's a tiny bit of energy storage designed into the power supplies for this grade of gear as part of the circuitry that converts the high-voltage AC mains to low-voltage DC for the rest of the electronics, and it often takes a wee bit longer than 1 second for that low-voltage DC to stop completely after the AC supply is cut off.
During a really short mains outage, it's quite common to see low-power electronics like modems and routers just keep on running until power is restored instead of resetting themselves and starting over. But because part of that running time was on insufficient voltage, their internal memory devices can corrupt a few bits of stored information and the equipment ends up running wrong.
Switching the modem and router off for a good ten seconds each will force a proper cold start, and should restore reliable operation unless the outage was accompanied by a surge that's caused actual physical damage.
posted by flabdablet at 5:28 PM on January 16, 2018
are also the ones that tend to cause the most trouble for consumer-grade gear powered by wall warts.
There's a tiny bit of energy storage designed into the power supplies for this grade of gear as part of the circuitry that converts the high-voltage AC mains to low-voltage DC for the rest of the electronics, and it often takes a wee bit longer than 1 second for that low-voltage DC to stop completely after the AC supply is cut off.
During a really short mains outage, it's quite common to see low-power electronics like modems and routers just keep on running until power is restored instead of resetting themselves and starting over. But because part of that running time was on insufficient voltage, their internal memory devices can corrupt a few bits of stored information and the equipment ends up running wrong.
Switching the modem and router off for a good ten seconds each will force a proper cold start, and should restore reliable operation unless the outage was accompanied by a surge that's caused actual physical damage.
posted by flabdablet at 5:28 PM on January 16, 2018
If your WiFi access point is set to pick a channel automatically, there's a chance that it may have chosen a different channel when the power came back, during a lull when the new channel seemed quiet because other access points in your neighborhood were slower on the draw. Now they're back on, and the new channel is crowded.
Try turning the access point(s) off for 20 seconds, then back on, to see if that resolves the problem.
posted by dws at 9:09 PM on January 16, 2018
Try turning the access point(s) off for 20 seconds, then back on, to see if that resolves the problem.
posted by dws at 9:09 PM on January 16, 2018
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If that hasn't fixed it, without knowing more or getting too in-depth about your specific setup, give this a shot (IANYD, etc etc). You should know what the password is to your wifi network is before you do this, as you will need to re-enter it at a certain point:
1. Click the Apple menu in the top left.
2. Choose "System Preferences…" from the pull-down menu.
3. Choose the "Network" pane (by default, should be in the third row, in the middle. It's a pale blue globe with white lines criss-crossing). The Network pane will open up.
4. Choose "Wi-Fi" from the list on the left side.
5. Click the "Advanced…" button in the lower right of the window.
6. A new little panel will slide down. By default, it should show you a list of "Preferred Networks." (If it doesn't, make sure that the left most tab, labelled "Wi-Fi" is the one that is selected).
7. Find your Wi-Fi in the list of networks.
8. MAKE SURE THAT YOU KNOW THE PASSWORD TO YOUR WI-FI NETWORK BEFORE PROCEEDING.
9. Highlight your Wi-Fi network name in the list, then click the minus (-) button in located at the bottom left of the list.
10. Click "OK". The little panel slides away.
11. Click "Apply".
12. Close the System Preferences window.
13. Re-connect to your Wi-Fi (likely by going to the Wi-Fi menu in the top right of the screen, clicking it, and choosing your network from the list). You will need to re-enter the password.
posted by daisy55 at 12:13 PM on January 16, 2018 [2 favorites]