Walk me through how you would troubleshoot an internet connection issue for a customer who can't connect to Wi-Fi. What steps would you take?

Situation

A few months ago, my cousin's laptop suddenly couldn't connect to our home PLDT Wi-Fi, although his phone was still connected. He had a class presentation in 30 minutes and was panicking.

Task

I needed to quickly identify whether the problem was with his laptop, the router, or the internet provider, and get him back online before his presentation.

Action

I asked him first if any error message appeared and if he had recently changed any settings. I checked if other devices could connect to the same Wi-Fi (they could), then had him restart the laptop and router. When that didn't work, I checked the Wi-Fi adapter settings, found it was disabled, enabled it, and saw that the laptop still wouldn't get a valid IP. I opened Command Prompt, released and renewed the IP address, and finally assigned a static IP as a temporary fix.

Result

He connected in about 15 minutes and joined his class on time. Later that day I explained what happened and showed him how to check the adapter settings himself.