WiFi connected but no internet — how do I fix it?

Acutis · plain-English network help · updated June 2026

Why WiFi is connected but there's no internet

"WiFi connected but no internet" is the classic networking riddle: your device shows it is joined to the network, full bars, yet nothing loads. The reason is that connecting to WiFi and reaching the internet are two separate things. Your device has a solid link to the router, but the path from the router out to the wider internet — or the translation step that finds websites — is broken somewhere. The good news is that the causes are well known, and trying them in the right order solves most cases in a few minutes.

Work through these in order; each is quick and rules out one cause.

1. Restart the right things, in the right order

Most of the time this alone fixes it. Power-cycle the whole chain so each piece re-negotiates a clean connection:

1. Unplug the modem and the router (if separate).
2. Wait 30 seconds.
3. Plug in the modem first and wait for its lights to settle (1–2 minutes).
4. Then plug in the router and wait for it to come up.
5. Reconnect your device and test.

2. Check whether it's one device or all of them

• If only one device says connected-but-no-internet, the problem is on that device — its IP, its DNS, or its network stack. Skip to steps 4 and 5.
• If every device is affected, the problem is the router or the line from your provider. Focus on steps 3 and 6.

3. Look for a captive portal

On public or guest WiFi (hotels, cafes, airports), "connected but no internet" usually means a sign-in page — a captive portal — is waiting and you haven't passed it yet. Open a browser and go to a plain http:// site such as http://neverssl.com; the portal should appear. Until you accept the terms or log in, you'll have a connection with no internet.

4. Renew your IP address

If your device picked up a bad address or two devices grabbed the same one (an IP conflict), traffic goes nowhere. Force a fresh address:

• Windows: open Command Prompt and run ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew.
• Mac: System Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Details → TCP/IP → Renew DHCP Lease.

A telltale sign of an address problem is an IP that starts with 169.254 — that means the device failed to get a real address from the router.

5. Fix DNS

If pages won't load by name but the connection is otherwise up, DNS is the likely cause. DNS is the directory that turns example.com into a numeric address. Reset and replace it:

• Clear the cache — Windows: ipconfig /flushdns; Mac: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache.
• Switch to a reliable public DNS server: 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) or 8.8.8.8 (Google) in your network settings.

If sites suddenly load after changing DNS, that was the culprit.

6. Check the router and the line to your provider

If every device is offline, the router may have a connection to your devices but no connection to the internet itself.

• Look at the modem's internet / online light. If it is off or blinking, the line from your provider is down — reboot the modem and, if it stays down, contact your provider.
• Log into the router's admin page and check its WAN / internet status. If it shows no public address, the router isn't getting service from the modem. Reboot both; check the cable between them.
• Bypass the router entirely: plug a computer straight into the modem. If the internet works that way, your router is the problem.

7. Reset the network stack (one stubborn device)

If a single device still won't reach the internet after all of the above, its network settings may be corrupted. On Windows, run these in an admin Command Prompt and reboot:

• netsh winsock reset
• netsh int ip reset

On a Mac or phone, "Reset Network Settings" does the same job. As a last resort, a clean reinstall of the WiFi driver clears deeper faults.

The quick mental model

Connected-but-no-internet always breaks into two questions: is it just my device, or everything? And is the connection itself broken, or just the DNS lookup? Answer those two and you've narrowed it to a single fix. If your device is healthy and the router or line is the problem, no amount of fiddling on the laptop will help — and vice versa.