No Internet After a Power Outage? Here’s What You Should Do

No Internet After a Power Outage? Here’s What You Should Do

Aside from strong winds and flooding, thunderstorms also cause unexpected power outages. This could be a result of fallen trees and power lines. In some places, outages could also be because power suppliers decide to shutdown supply to avoid damages should the calamities worsen. And very rarely, power outages result from lack of supply of electricity to accommodate the current demand. So, power stations decide to cut down power supply on select places to avoid a widespread blackout.

In any case, a power outage can negatively affect the performance of your home electrical appliances and devices – including your televisions, computers, and Wi-Fi modem and/or router. When power supply is cut, routers could stop working normally, and this results to internet connection failure after the sudden power outage.

However, this does not mean that your network connection is permanently lost. Here is a troubleshooting guide that you can follow if your internet connection fails, or your router stops working after a power outage.

1.  Restart your modem

  1. Unplug your modem from the power outlet.
  2. Wait for a few seconds to a minute.
  3. Plug it back in and wait for it to properly boot up.
  4. Connect to your network and try to load up any website.
  5. If it successfully loads up a website, your internet is now working fine. If not, jump to the next step.

2.  Reboot your firewall/router

  1. Turn off your router and unplug it from the power source (if there is no ON/OFF switch, simply unplug it).
  2. Unplug your modem from the power supply. 
  3. Unplug the ethernet cable connecting your router to your modem. 
  4. Attach the cable back into the modem and turn the router back on.
  5. Wait for a few minutes for the router to properly reboot.
  6. Test your internet connection.
  7. If this does not work, jump to the next step.

3.  Ping your router

  1. On your search bar, type and open “Command Prompt”.
  2. In the command prompt window, type “IPCONFIG” and then press Enter.
  3. Your router’s IP address (e.g., 192.168.100.1) will then be displayed.
  4. Type “ping” followed by the IP address (e.g., “ping 192.168.100.1”) and press enter.
  5. Wait for your system to display a reply that looks similar to this:
    Command Prompt – Ping router
    • If your router does not respond, try rebooting your network bridge once more.

4.  Restart your Domain Name System (DNS) services

A power outage can cause your ISP’s DNS server to stop working. This can be easily resolved by rebooting your DNS server. To do this:

  1. On your search bar, type and open “Command Prompt”.
  2. Type “net stop dnscache” and press enter to stop the service. You may have to wait a few seconds for the service to stop.
  3. Type “net start dnscache” and press enter to restart the DNS service.
  4. To see if your DNS is working properly, open your browser and type in a domain (eg., cisco.com). If the browser loads the domain, your DNS is working properly.

5.  Call your Internet Service Provider (ISP)

If none of the above-mentioned steps worked, call your ISP and report that your area has experienced a power outage and internet has stopped working.

You can ask if internet connectivity in your area was severely affected, such as if there are broken lines. If that is the case, the only option for you is to wait for them to repair the broken internet lines. If not, you can ask for help on what to do to restore your connectivity. You might have to perform some troubleshooting while being guided by them over the phone.

If you badly need an internet connection, you can use your phone as Wi-Fi hotspot.

Final Words

Internet connection failure is common after a power outage, especially when the outage is caused by physical damages to power lines.

If the power outage messed up your Wi-Fi connectivity, the solutions mentioned above should help you resolve the issues. However, if you are not comfortable tinkering with your router, you can always call your ISP for expert solution. https://support.pcny.biz/portal/en/newticket


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