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.