Why does my internet connection not work right away?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #26, I talk about the various reasons why an internet connection may
be slow and what I do when that happens.

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Slow internet connection

I have encountered the same thing and to be honest, I don’t have an answer for actually fixing it for you.

What I’ve noticed is that in some cases, particularly in wireless cases, it just takes awhile for your computer to figure out how to connect: not to the internet, but to your router.

That may be a case of just figuring out which wireless protocol it wants to use. Even in wired situations, it’s possible that it may take awhile to figure out what speed it wants to run at.

Automatic controls may take time

Remember, most internet connections or most wired connections are now automatically sensing what speed they should be running at. While that kind of automatic sensing can (depending on the equipment you have involved) take a little time, it often takes more than it should.

I’ll admit that in most cases I have found that it’s simply been a matter of time. If I wait a couple of minutes, the problem will just resolve itself and things will work fine.

Diagnosing the problem

The actual process of diagnosing the problem can kick-start the process; can make it happen a little faster. In general, I’m thinking, it’s very likely that if you just waited a few minutes longer, it’s probably going to be okay.

If it does take an excessive amount of time, then I really don’t have a specific answer for you other than to make sure that all of the networking equipment you have is running properly and that the wireless signal strength (again assuming that you’re running wireless) is as strong as possible.