Two of the Kindle’s most appealing features are its wireless connection, which lets you download new books any time of the day from most places in the US, and the rapidly expanding treasure trove of ebooks available on Amazon. So it’s a sad, sad day when you switch on your Kindle’s wireless and get…nothing. No bars, no signal, no Whispernet, no instant access to that literary treasure chest.

What’s a Kindler to do when her wireless is kaput?

There are several possibilities to explore:

1. Your location.
2. Kindle hardware and software glitches.
3. The problem’s with Amazon.
4. Your wireless is kaput.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to troubleshooting Kindle wireless problems.

First things first

Your wireless probably isn’t kaput.

I know that having the Kindle wireless die completely is something many Kindlers worry about; after all, this is brand new technology and the company’s first hardware product - who knows how reliable it is and what sort of longevity we can expect?

Chances are, though, that even if you can’t get a signal for a whole day or for several days in a row, the wireless in your Kindle hasn’t died, but that something else is afoot. There are several other possibilities worth investigating first.

1. Are you in Kindle’s wireless coverage area? 

Amazon’s Whispernet comes to you courtesy of Sprint’s EVDO network, so you can only use your Kindle’s wireless when you’re in the network’s coverage area.

As you’ll see from the map, urban coverage is pretty good (orange indicates high-speed, green areas get lower-speed connections), but rural folk are left off the map in many places. (Click the image to visit the Kindle coverage map online, where you can search for a particular address.)

Even if you are under Whispernet’s spell, all sorts of things can have an effect on the signal. Bad weather, hills and dales, other wireless devices in your house, that concrete bunker you’re in. Try moving about, going outside or just waiting until the storm passes, then check your connection once more.

2. Is your Kindle having a bad hair day? 

Your Kindle is like most computing devices: sometimes it’ll stop working temporarily, usually for no apparent reason. The simplest solution is often the most effective: turn it off and then back on again.

• Flick both the power and wireless switches to the off position, wait a few seconds, then switch them both back on.
• Sometimes switching the wireless on is not enough; you won’t get a connection until you actually try to connect. Give the Kindle a nudge to go online by clicking the menu button and choosing Shop In Kindle Store.

Still no signal? You may be tempted to try pushing the reset button on the back of your Kindle (under the cover). The word from Amazon is: Don’t! It’s not likely to help, and when you press the reset button, troubleshooting info stored on your Kindle, which might potentially help with fixing errors on your device, is erased.

3. The problem’s at Amazon’s end

The Whispernet is not infallible. Sometimes it silently disappears for a while, then just as quietly returns after five minutes, five hours or even longer.

If you’ve tried various physical solutions and your Kindle is still wireless-less, try patience. It usually works. I’ve had no connection on a fair few occasions - one time for two days - but the signal has always returned.

If your Kindle is brand new, there’s another possibility: Amazon failed to register it properly on its network. If you’ve just received your Kindle and the wireless won’t work at all, give the Kindle support line a call on 1-866-321-8851 to make sure everything’s hunky dory.

4. Your Kindle’s wireless really is dead

If you’ve run through this troubleshooting checklist and you still can’t get a wireless connection within the Whispernet coverage area, your wireless really may be kaput.

If your Kindle is less than a year old (and as I write this, all Kindles are) give the Kindle hotline a call: 1-866-321-8851 from within the US, 1-206-266-0927 if you’re calling from afar.

Other solutions? 

Have you found a different solution to your Whispernet problem? If so, please share it by leaving a comment.

I’ve added a new article called Troubleshooting Internet Connection Problems to the Tutorials & Guides section. You’ll find it helpful for diagnosing and fixing problems when you:

• Can’t access a web site.
• Can’t get online at all.
• Can’t connect to a wireless network.

This excerpt describes a method for curing many modem- or router-based problems.

Trouble accessing the Internet

If you can’t access the Internet at all, start by checking your hardware:

1. Is your modem on? Check that all the usual lights are lit or blinking as appropriate. It helps, of course, if you know which lights are usually lit solid and which flash, so if possible position your modem (and your router) so you can see the status lights.

If the lights are not lit correctly – or if you’re not sure whether they are – reboot your modem: disconnect the power cord, wait about a minute, then reconnect the power cord and wait for the lights to come on. Then try your Internet connection again. If the lights are not lit, ensure the power cord is properly seated, then check the Ethernet or USB cable between your modem and your computer. Don’t just give the cables a look over; instead, disconnect each end of the cable and plug it back in securely. If you’re using an Ethernet cable, it should make a click when it seats properly. If you’re using a USB cable and have it connected through a hub, take the hub out of the loop: disconnect the USB cable from between the modem and the hub and connect it directly from the modem to a USB port on your computer. Also, if you’re using a USB port on the front of your computer, try disconnecting that cable and plugging it into a USB port on the back of your computer; sometimes, the ports at the front do not have sufficient power to do the job.

Tip: Prepare for trouble

Most ISP’s list their technical support phone number on their web site (although you may have to dig around to find it). Write it down now, before you have a problem with your Internet connection, and stick it somewhere handy. Also, make sure you have a copy of your router’s documentation on hand – you should find a downloadable version at the manufacturer’s site.

If the modem lights still fail to come on, give your ISP a call. There’s a good chance there’s something wrong their end.

2. Is your router on? If you use a router in conjunction with your modem, make sure the appropriate lights are lit and check its cables, too. Even if the correct lights are on, try resetting the router by disconnecting its power, waiting a minute, then reconnecting the power.

If the router’s lights fail to come on but your modem appears to be working, your router may have failed. Routers have a tendency to go bad silently and without notice. One way to check whether the router is kaput is to disconnect your computer from the router and reconnect directly through the modem. If you can successfully connect to the Internet without the router intervening, there’s a chance the router no longer works. It’s also possible that the router’s internal firewall or security settings are causing a problem, but in that case, its lights should still display as usual.

Sometimes, rebooting the modem and the router separately is not enough, but a full reboot may do the trick:

1. Switch off your computer and unplug the modem and the router.
2. Wait a minute.
3. Plug in the modem and wait for its lights to come on.
4. Plug in the router and wait for its lights to come on.
5. Switch on your computer.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve noticed problems with viewing Google results. I’d type a search term in the box on the Google site and the search results would appear only after a delay of a few seconds. Then, when I’d click any of those search results I’d get a further delay, sometimes so long that my only recourse was to hit the Stop button and then the Reload button.

Occasionally, something else would happen: I’d type in a search phrase and hit Enter, and instead of showing a list of results, Google’d show me a fragment of HTML code. This also started happening when I’d click a result: no site, just some HTML code.

I was on the verge of devoting some time to troubleshooting this when a hard drive crash gave me something else to focus on, and a chance to reinstall Windows and all my software. When I did so, Google appeared to behave a little better, so I let it ride. But over the weeks, the flakiness started creeping back in and this week it got to the point where it was seriously derailing my online work.

So, I decided to troubleshoot.

I normally use Firefox as my browser, so I loaded up Internet Explorer 7 to see whether the same thing was happening with it. Nope, IE 7 and Google worked smoothly together. That made me think it might be a problem either with Firefox or with one of my Firefox add-ons.

To double-check, I tried using Google on my second desktop PC. My main workhorse computer runs Windows XP and has a cable Internet connection provided by Cox Communications. My second computer is a Vista machine with a separate DSL Internet connection from BellSouth.  I ran some Google searches using Firefox on this second machine and encountered no problems at all.

Okay, so maybe Firefox wasn’t at fault. It seemed like there were four possible problem areas on my XP machine:

• Spyware or a virus.
• A Firefox add-on.
• A problem on Cox’s end of the Internet connection.
• A software conflict or hardware problem (router, perhaps?).

As spyware is so often the cause of system slowdowns, I ran some extra scans to check that out first. My system came up clean.

A Firefox add-on? The version of Firefox on my Vista machine is pretty clean; the only add-on I have installed is Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, which I can’t live without. On my XP machine, though, Firefox is loaded up with a whole bunch of add-ons. I disabled the lot of them, planning to reinstate each one-by-one should this solve my problem. But no, Google’s sluggishness persisted.

Next on my list was Cox. I really didn’t want the problem to be with them, because I knew I’d probably be entering into support hell if that were the case, but I did wonder whether their much-touted “turbo caching” of popular sites was causing problems. I did some checking to see whether they had any reported network problems (none) and whether as a user I had any control over cache settings from their end (I didn’t). I decided to put off any further Cox troubleshooting until after I’d checked all other possible causes.

So, a software conflict? I have very different programs installed on my Vista and XP machines, which meant a lot of territory to cover. It made sense to start by checking out software that could be affecting my Internet access, in particular my security suite.

I use Trend Micro’s PC-Cillin Internet Security 2007. I opened up its main console and took a look at the Internet & Email Controls. I had the spyware filter and phishing protection enabled; the spam and web site filters disabled.

The phishing filter provides a warning when you try to access a site known for phishing (a type of fraud designed to lure you into handing over your ID, password and financial details). It also warns you when you access any site with “phishing characteristics”. Hmm…I thought, I wonder how long it takes PC-Cillin to mull over the phishiness of each site?

Bingo! As soon as I switched the phishing filter off, my Google problems disappeared.

Of course, that means to get Google back to its old, slick ways I must do without the phishing filter. That’s a trade-off I can live with.

The real problem with PC-Cillin

After fixing the problem, I decided to do a search of Trend Micro’s technical knowledgebase to see whether there was any mention of this issue. While there was no specific reference to the phishing filter, I did come across an article about system sluggishness when running both PC-Cillin and Spybot Search & Destroy. I don’t have Spybot installed on my XP system, but I was interested to see that the article recommended checking which version of PC-Cillin you have installed and, if the version number is lower than 15.30, to upgrade it.

Why? Not why should I upgrade, but why doesn’t this happen automatically?

PC-Cillin phones home to its mother site every day to download new virus signatures and other updates. So why should I have to upgrade the program manually? Surely this should happen automatically. After all, I’m paying a yearly subscription to get the product and its updates.

I’ve been using PC-Cillin for several years now and have been mostly satisfied with it. I used to use Norton, but Symantec made the product so unwieldy and unstable I gave it the hook and opted for simpler fare. Now, I’m contemplating a return to the Norton fold, especially as Symantec has responded to the complaints and produced what, from all accounts, is a sleeker, faster and more reliable Norton Internet Security 2008.

It’s not just the phishing problem and the lack of program updating that have prompted me to consider dumping PC-Cillin, it’s the truly excruciating subscription renewal experience they put their customers through. I’ve been through PC-Cillin’s subscription renewal at least a dozen and a half times on my own PCs and those of clients, and never - not once - has the process gone entirely smoothly. Either the program won’t download or the credit card processing goes awry or no download link is provided or the program won’t install properly or I have to provide yet another email address to satisfy their useless account procedures or… well, you get the drift.

With subscription-based software being the new trend, it behooves software suppliers to provide a smooth, efficient and pleasant subscription process, not the sort of hell Trend Micro puts its customers through.

My subscription falls due in a few months. The more I think about it, the more I’m looking forward to a change.