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My wired network has stopped working. The wireless seems fine, but the wired has gone MIA.

Today is a troubleshooting day.

I think I’ve identified the problem, but, while I am testing my way to certainty, I will be preoccupied from annoying people via the internet.

I love shooting trouble, when it belongs to someone else . . . .

I hate troubleshooting.

It’s the hunt that is annoying, because, to do it right, you have to do it one step at a time, working from macro to micro, ruling out possible causes with certainty at each step. And, with a wired network, that means juggling wires, lots of wires, often in difficult-to-access locations.

It’s simple (if you understand wires), tedious, and time-consuming. Mostly time-consuming.

Update:

A cable tester is your friend.

Update:

I have spotted the enemy and he has been routed.

With a new router.

In case it helps someone, here’s what happened.

My wired network consists of a connection from the router to a five-port switch. A second five-port switch is connected to the first. Those switches serve two desktop computers (there used to be three), my primary laptop, and a network printer.

The first indication of trouble was when my primary laptop lost internet connectivity. When I turned on the wireless, internet connectivity returned, but I lost the ability to connect to the wired computers and the printer.

Both the desktop computers lost internet connectivity, also, but they were able to ping each other. Since they were on the second switch (switches are smarter than hubs); it could have been the switch.

They could also ping the printer, which is on the other switch.

That narrowed the list of suspects to the uplink port on the primary switch, the cable to the router, or the router itself.

I switched the uplink from one switch to the other, where I knew the uplink port worked because it had been successfully uplinked to the other switch (the one with the printer). No difference–it was not the uplink port.

After pulling out the cable, which snaked behind a bunch of furniture, a test showed that it was okay (15 minutes of pulling, ten seconds of testing).

I swapped out the router, since I happened to have a spare left over from the last time I thought the router was broke when it turned out not to be, following the instructions for letting it get an ip address from the modem and verifying that I was able to connect.

I cabled a homerun from a computer directly to the router and rebooted. Wired connectivity was restored.

Once I had the wireless security setting configured, I tested the wireless. Success.

Then I spent a funky 45 minutes setting up the router the way it should I like it (DHCP range, port forwarding, and so on.)

98% of troubleshooting is identifying the trouble, and that held true here. (It is a little freaky that the wired connection would go and the wireless kept working; that’s why I spent so much time winnowing the list of suspects.)

If you don’t identify the trouble with certainty, you run around fixing stuff what ain’t broke while the trouble just laughs at you.

I rewarded myself by going to the polling place, where the poll workers were glad of a little company.

My brain is fried.