Hello @ffl332 ,
Welcome to our community.
First, it's important to note that port forwarding is only needed when you want to access your Raspberry Pi from outside your home network (from the internet). Since you're trying to connect from your Windows 10 computer that's on the same local network as your Raspberry Pi, port forwarding is unlikely to be the cause of the problem.
The "connection refused" error in PuTTY typically indicates one of these things:
1. SSH service isn't enabled or running on your Raspberry Pi • Make sure SSH is enabled in Raspbian. You can enable it by creating an empty file named "ssh" (no extension) in the boot partition of your SD card.
2. Incorrect IP address • Verify you're using the correct local IP address of your Raspberry Pi. You can check this in your router's DHCP client list.
3. Firewall blocking the connection • Check if any firewall on the Raspberry Pi is blocking SSH connections.
Regarding port forwarding setup: According to our knowledgebase, when configuring port forwarding on your Archer router, you should first make sure the server (your Raspberry Pi) is accessible from the internal network. Once you can successfully connect via PuTTY locally, then you can set up port forwarding for external access.
For detailed instructions on configuring port forwarding, please refer to: how to set up virtual server on TP-Link wireless router?
If port forwarding doesn't work after you've verified local access, check that:
• Your router has a public WAN IP address (not a CGNAT address in the range 100.64.0.0 to 100.127.255.255)
• The firewall settings on your Raspberry Pi allow traffic from outside
For more troubleshooting details, see: Why port forwarding feature is not working on my Wi-Fi router
