Network Disconnects


Network disconnects can generally be diagnosed with network diagnostic tools tools like ping, tracert, and pathping, but connections that frequently and randomly disconnect can be difficult to diagnose. Often you may suspect an ISP issue, or a router to modem link, but when you contact your ISP the reply always seems to be; “it’s working now”. To be fair to the ISP, it usually is working now. You would be far more likely to get assistance if you could provide a log showing which network segment was down, for how long, and how frequently.

Documenting Problems

NetGong is an intuitive network monitoring tool that can be helpful in documenting disconnects. It is really a powerful personal monitoring product with logging, and that log can be very useful when diagnosing connections from a PC to the Internet, Virtual Private Networks, or within a LAN through various routers. Basically any connection involving multiple network segments.

NetGong can be set up to test multiple IPs at set time intervals of one minute or greater. Ideally you want to monitor different devices in different network segments between the client and host such as a LAN based IP like a router, an interim point like the ISP’s gateway (find from your routers status page), and an IP somewhere “in the cloud”. It does not log every test but rather only when the connection state changes which maintains a reasonable log file size. You can see the current state in the console, or view the recorded log file in text or Html format.

Moreover

NetGong can also be used to trigger alerts if needed and is great for network monitoring if numerous devices are online.