What tools should you buy for home network troubleshooting? I only have these four items in my drawer for a little over a hundred yuan. I advise you not to order the other three

Why do tools decide these two layers? Because they are invisible to the naked eye. A network cable looks intact, but with eight cores and four broken cores, the device can still connect to the internet. But if gigabit drops to hundreds, you won't even notice if you don't use the instrument. A power adapter running 12V without load works fine, but once the load drops to 9V, routers restart, optical modems and light degradation—all kinds of problems, all rooted in the power. I call this layer the "invisible layer"—the tool is the eye that fits this layer.

four worth buying, adding up just over a hundred yuan

the first item, line gauge, 15 pieces. this is a tiny box about the size of a palm, with two modules, main and secondary modules. Plug in the network cable at both ends, and all eight lights will light up one by one. If all lights are lit in order, it means all eight cores are fully on; Only four flashes are 1236, gigabit dropped, and the gigabit has dropped to hundreds of megabits. The device doesn't report errors, just slow. The network cable inside the wall in my study was chewed by a rat, and the speed was stuck at 93 Mbps all year round. I relied on it to only lock the broken core after only four lights came on, then used the binary method to find the broken point. The whole process took less than half an hour. I wrote a about the full process that inspection. I can't do without the crystal heads myself. when I learned to press the thread, I ruined six on the spot, so I figured it out on the spot. No need to run back to my room to plug in the device after the threading.

second item, a crimping pliers set, around 50 pieces. wire crimping pliers cost about 25 yuan, comes with a pack of crystal heads, costs 0.3 yuan each, plus a wire stripper knife. If you have exposed wiring to remove, a panel to replace, or an old head that needs heavy pressing, this set is your ticket to entry. The threshold for wire pressing isn't about the skill, but about inspecting the line. After pressing with pliers and plugging in the wire tester, it's clear at a glance whether the light is right. Together, it's 65 yuan, cheaper than hiring someone to visit once.

third item: a multimeter, forty or fifty yuan. entry-level Numeric Watches in the SVR VC830L segment can be bought for just over forty yuan, while the Uniform UT33B costs about ten yuan more than a bit for more burn protection, both are fine. For home troubleshooting, you only need to know one trick: DC voltage range, a red probe inserted into the plug core, a black probe connected to the outer tube, and reading. My optical modem experienced fluent, unstable light degradation, and disconnections in the middle of the night. After a week of optical path treatment, it didn't work. Later, when I measured the power supply, 11.6V was normal under no-load, but the load dropped to 9.2V. Capacitor aging was confirmed, and switching the power supply immediately caused the light degradation to drop back down. I've written about this case before. Another time, I helped a neighbor check surveillance footage and suspected that the switch's PoE port had burned out equipment. I measured the air port voltage with a meter. The standard PoE port only had a detection voltage of two to ten volts fluctuating, while the non-standard one was always at 48 volts—one measure and you could tell that cheap switch was a non-standard device that "doesn't even ask." PoE have explained this method before.

fourth item: two well-known network cables, about ten pieces. is the most inconspicuous, but the most frequently used. One short cable, connect the computer directly to the optical modem during troubleshooting and bypass the router. The normal speed issue lies in the router section; A long wire can be replaced with the inner wall wire for reference at any time. The essence of the elimination method is to "replace the suspect with a confirmed item." The network cable is the easiest part of the entire house to be suspected and most easily verified. my old habit of speed testing is to connect directly to the first. By the way, buy a backup cable with a Category 5 or above and within 2 meters. Don't be greedy for length. Network cables start to attenuate once they exceed 100 meters. For distance, I tested it at 130 meters and .

want to add one thing, metering socket, 23 yuan . It's not really a network tool, but it's very useful to check "whether the device is actually working"—when power consumption suddenly hits zero, it's usually because the power supply or device has died, and abnormally high power consumption is usually the one holding it off. Previously, I measured the standby power consumption of all the units in the house one by one, relying entirely on it. the electricity bill list was measured by it.

three things that cost nothing, ninety percent of failures depend on them

Before

tools arrive, these three items on your phone are already on the road.

Android with WiFiAnalyzer, you can clearly see whose signal on the same floor is squeezed onto the same channel. my channel automatically trips at night and the vacuum disconnects, it scans the three routers of my neighbor and all piles them on channel 1. Apple can't install this, so I used the signal strength readings from speed testing apps to make do with it.

the WiFi detail page on your phone, open the currently connected network, and check the gateway address and signal strength. Check the negative dBm signal value: use anything below -50, be cautious if it's below -70. I hold my phone and mark the numbers at five points at home one by one. The blind spots are clearly behind the wall. I've organized of this clumsy method .

router's backend status page, WAN port IP, number of connected devices, runtime, memory usage—these six fields can be filtered out at a glance to eliminate half the possibilities. how to read each field, I have written a of the interpretation table. The modem is even more aggressive: the backend reads light decay directly, from -8 to -27 is considered healthy. three tips for splitting light decay and self-rescue are in this article—there are many tutorials to buy a light power meter, but your home modem actually has one yourself.

three things I advise you not to rush to buy—the logic is simple

light power meter, starting from two to three hundred. the biggest problem with buying it for home use isn't the money, but what you can't do after you measure it. When light degradation exceeds the limit, the root cause lies in the cold junction, the splitter, or the fusion fiber box. All handling requires a technician to bring a fusion fiber machine to your door. The power meter in your hand can only confirm "you really need to call someone"—this can be done for free by the light modem's backend reading. Its real users are installers and maintenance technicians, who use segmented light decay measurement to locate fault points. I put it in my cart and then deleted it, because I figured it out.

line seeker, costing anywhere from tens to over a hundred yuan. this thing looks like a line detector, but it does a different thing: the wire finder is for 'finding wires.' The dozens of wires in the weak current box are connected to which room, the transmitter clamps the wire, and the receiver scans along to listen for sound. Just gather a few threads at home, stick a circle of tags and it's done—it's a two-yuan issue. If you really want to test breakpoint distance with the TDR model, the price goes up again, and it's totally not worth it for family use.

engineering treasures, hundreds or even thousands. This is the setup technician's essentials, integrating network cable testing, optical power, and red light pen all in one. When my cousin was obsessed with buying second-hand devices, he bought one for 300 yuan and was about 80% new. Now it's gathering dust in the storage room—barely used twice a year, and the screen is smaller than a phone. If individual players really need a few items, buying them separately can actually be cheaper.

the common point of these three is: they all "confirm the problem" for you, but after confirming, others still have to take action. Before spending money on tools, ask yourself whether I can handle the results of these measurements myself.

move the same guy for every symptom, and take it personally

earlier words scattered, but now it's a whole table. On the left are the symptoms at home, on the right are the hands that started first. Follow the order and don't remove the stitches right away.

this chart hides a pattern: the four things spent are all on "lines" and "electricity," while the three free items are all in "waves" and "configuration." So the purchasing order is simple—first familiarize yourself with the three free items, and you'll find that most problems don't reach the stage where you need the instrument; If you really need to press the wire and new head, buy the 65-yuan line gauge and line plier set first; A multimeter depends on fate. If you have power tools or an old charger at home, you'll need it sooner or later.

ending: about a hundred yuan, but you don't get blind

Back to my dad's box. He didn't say a word after hearing this. A couple of days later, he messaged me saying that Old Wang's upstairs family had lost internet, and the technician had just come to measure it with a "small watch" and asked if it was the one in my box. I said yes, it's probably a multimeter. Old Wang paid fifty yuan for a door-to-door fee, and my box was just over a hundred yuan. I've been using it for three years, helping my dad, my sister's family, neighbors, and my cousin's unrecognizable NAS—that case was ultimately solved with a six-yuan cable, and SATA cable is the lowest-cost tool .

the family network mess, pinning all hopes on "trying to restart" or "waiting for a technician to get repaired" is the most exhausting way to live. With four tools and three free apps, you can get through most of the journey yourself. Buy a wire tester first, then add a line crimp plier, bring a multimeter and reference wire with you, and a power meter line finder engineering treasure—just leave them in your shopping cart.