It’s something almost everyone experiences at some point in their life, and most likely will hear about from friends, roommates, family members, random people complaining in the dorms or in the halls or... face it, it’s something that makes people angry.

Slow.

Internet.

Slow internet is a horrifying and potentially lethal (not really) affliction that can strike at any time, for any reason. And here at LSSU, where bandwidth is shared across an entire student body, these things can become a serious problem – especially when your internet stops entirely, and you get to stare at the blank white screen while your ‘loaded’ bar stays firmly at 0%, or the infamous “Error 404: Page not found” error (at least it’s not the blue screen of death, right?). Compounding the issue is the fact that our shared bandwidth also means shared tech support, and our IT department can’t be everywhere at once.

So, in the spirit of the school’s mutual sanity, here are a few things you can do to try and fix a viciously slow or entirely stopped internet connection – before you call IT (They will probably tell you these things on the phone anyway, so it saves us all time.

1.    Restart your computer. As basic as this sounds, saving everything and restarting can help, or even just closing all your browser windows and starting over can fix the problems. Sometimes, it just gets stuck, and starting over can give my much better results (this tactic proved effective this morning on a certain writer’s computer moments before this column was written). Failing that, though, a restart can also do the trick.

2.    If you don’t want to restart, or something precludes your doing so, there is another method that often produces results. You should still close your browser windows out first – just to be safe. Many people are entirely unfamiliar with the “Run” application on their start menu, and have never thought to click it. It does, however, have uses. For users with Windows XP, simply click your Start button and look at the bottom of the left column that comes up when you do – it is probably right under “Search”. For users with Vista, you will have to type “Run” in the start menu search bar, it should be the first thing that comes up. Once here, you will be presented with a small window with a space to type something. First (order is important), type “ipconfig /release” (without the quote marks, obviously). You will see a DOS prompt window appear (a little window that’s all black) and you may see a flicker of some text there but it will close itself out quickly, probably before you can read it. You will also see an error message saying your connectivity is limited – ignore it. Now, open the Run command again and type “ipconfig /renew”. You will see a bit more text this time in the DOS window but, again, you likely won’t be able to read it. The error message will go away on its own, and unless your loss of net was a result of the actual school network being down, you will have a full connection again. Try your internet. It should start working much better.

If these things don’t work, it is likely that there is simply a slowdown in the school’s net – it happens, but these measures are for a much more drastic slowing – as in, pages refuse to load. If this problem persists, and these ideas do not help, then is the time to bug IT.

Good luck, brave warriors.

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