General Wi-Fi Troubleshooting

If you can’t pin down the problem, these general steps fix the majority of Wi-Fi issues — no matter the device or router brand.

Work through them in order; each one takes under two minutes.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Confirm whether other devices can connect. This single check tells you whether it’s a device problem or a network problem.
2. Turn Wi-Fi off and back on on the affected device, then reconnect.
3. Restart the device itself — a full restart clears a surprising number of network glitches.
4. Restart your router: unplug it for 30 seconds, plug it back in, and wait 2–3 minutes for it to fully reconnect.
5. Move closer to the router and forget the network, then reconnect with a freshly entered password.
6. If nothing has changed after all of that, contact your internet provider — the fault is likely on their side.

Helpful tips

• Change only one thing at a time, so you know which step actually fixed it.
• Almost every “mysterious” Wi-Fi problem is one of three things: the router needs a restart, the password is wrong, or the provider is down.
• Still stuck? Our other guides go deeper on each specific problem.