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Back online again!
May. 28th, 2006 11:09 amOur router died Friday night. I'm tempted to tease Eric that the giant software upgrade he was downloading burned it up but he'd probably say my puzzle pirates did it! lol
Where I try to get enough sleep and fail
Saturday I had a noon appointment to meet with Robert and Christine, my lab partners for the CCNA4 case study. Foolish me, I stayed up playing with my Sims after we lost internet. I stayed up until 3:30AM.. or was it 4? I thought it was just my laptop that lost the internet so I didn't try to reset the router. I knew Eric had a huge download going and didn't want to risk messing that up, so I just went to bed. I needed to sleep until 10 or 11 to get enough to function well but at around 9AM Eric woke up and suddenly threw the covers back over me to get up. He didn't mean to wake me up, he was too sleepy to realize he did it. Just as I was drifting back off, the phone rang. I knew it was Robert. It's already established that he's a "lark" and "larks" think 9:30AM is late. He was confirming our meeting and had the meeting time in his head as 11AM. I reminded him that it was noon and that I'm essentially a swing shift person with my work and class schedule. He apologized when I told him I really needed to sleep another hour. We hung up and I went back to bed.
The one electronic area where I out-shine Eric
I tried to go back to sleep knowing there was a good chance I was too awake to do it but as I started to drift off yet again I heard Eric muttering and slinging ethernet cables around. He and the dsl modem don't get along. If the connection drops, he can't seem to get it back up again. All I have to do is go in there and unplug it for 10 seconds then plug it back in. I think I'll watch him the next time to see what it is he does differently.
Why we have a router
Because the DSL modem only has one hookup for one computer and we each have more than one computer - not new, they're mostly old but still usable - we have a Linksys wireless router with a four-port switch for wired connections. That means we can plug four different computers or network printers into it and have any number of wireless computers. The wireless has been a problem and I have it turned off. Instead, we have long cables down the edge of our hall and around the edge of the living room so we can sit side by side in our recliners and play/work/study with our computers while we watch TV. Aren't we decadent?
Diagnosing the problem - not too techie and something non-techies should know/learn
Well this time, the modem would connect to earthlink properly (the top two lights, power and sync, were solid green), the WAN light (activity to earthlink) would flicker at first then stop but the LAN light (activity to our network) wouldn't even flicker once.
The router was blinking all of its lights on and off even for ports that had computers turned off. That means it was yelling for help. Normally, the lights are on or flickering for computers that are turned on and each flickers at a different rate. The usual fix of unplugging it for 10 seconds and plugging it back in didn't change that behavior, not a good sign. That means it was really confused.
Connecting my desktop PC's ethernet cable directly into the modem worked. That said the modem was OK. The messages it was sending were understood by my computer.
The problem was the router. I tried resetting the router to factory defaults by unplugging it for 10 seconds then plugging it in while holding the reset button for 30 seconds. After that it wouldn't power on at all. OK, the router was now dead. The warranty is long over so I let Eric take it apart to see if he could see a bad component. He couldn't. It wasn't fixable. He tested the AC adapter and said it was good. Dead router. Dead, dead router.
Where I try alternate methods to connect us
( Read more... )
Finally I crawled out from under the desk to think and noticed I had 15 minutes to clean up, get dressed and drive 15 minutes away. Whoops!
I got ready in record time but five minutes before noon the phone rang again. It was Robert. He was at Peet's coffee house waiting. I told him I was trying to get out the door and he said he was sorry he interrupted me. He thought I'd be in the car and thought he'd called my cell phone. He was worried I didn't know where Peet's was, even though we'd had a conversation a few days before about the restaurant that used to be in that spot. I reminded him that I'd eaten at The Good Earth many times when it was there and I knew exactly where to look for Peet's. I asked if Christine was there yet and she wasn't. She wasn't answering her cell phone, he said. I hung up and tried to reassemble my thoughts. Before I left, I attached Eric's long cable from the living room to the modem so he'd have internet access. In my rush out the door I forgot that I'd brought my class paperwork into the house. Usually my car is my library because the book and note studying happens during the gap between work and class unless I do it at work. The online studying happens at home. I'd planned to go over the case study over breakfast. *sigh* Best laid plans...
Anyway, I showed up about 15 minutes late without my paperwork and still not quite awake because I hadn't taken my adderall until I was headed out the door. If things had gone normally, I would have taken it right when I woke up. I also hadn't had much caffiene. When I looked for the $20 I got for the weekend, I couldn't find it. Was it in the jeans I wore the day before? Sometimes I put the cash in my pocket and I was wearing a different pair of jeans than the day before. Christine said she'd just gotten there five minutes before so don't worry. She had her copy of the case study. Robert didn't have his. Hmm... Christine bought us all a round of coffees. We're planning to meet there at noon every Saturday until we finish the case study. I'm on to buy them next Saturday. Later, I found the $20 hiding inside my checkbook.
**This section is techie-talk about the case study**
( Read more... )
Back home
I thought Eric said he was going to research replacement router prices while I was gone but instead, he was doing the incredibly big download he'd started the night before. He said that at this point I know a lot more about it than he does and he'd rather I do the research since I understand what the terms mean and he doesn't. His enormous download meant that I couldn't research replacement router prices using the dsl until it finished. He was two hours into a 3.5 hour download.
What to buy.. what to buy... I'll try to keep this "tech-lite"( Read more... )
To market, to market to buy a fat pig... er.. router
( Read more... )
Home again, home again, jiggity jig.
We got our weekly burritos and went home. We ate before I attempted to set the router up. I was two of HALT (Hungry Angry Lonely Tired) and technical tasks are best done with one or none of those. Last week I saw and bought the new release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail on DVD for really cheap! It had added features including a tour of filming sites. We watched the movie. I'd forgotten most of it. So had Eric. Then I set up the router. It was easy! Yay!
It makes me feel more confident all the time as I gain in experience with troubleshooting. I'm able to zero in on the problems pretty fast now. Solving them isn't as easy as I'd like yet, but that's getting better all the time. Networking is easy for me now. It's the PC's that frustrate me most.
Where I try to get enough sleep and fail
Saturday I had a noon appointment to meet with Robert and Christine, my lab partners for the CCNA4 case study. Foolish me, I stayed up playing with my Sims after we lost internet. I stayed up until 3:30AM.. or was it 4? I thought it was just my laptop that lost the internet so I didn't try to reset the router. I knew Eric had a huge download going and didn't want to risk messing that up, so I just went to bed. I needed to sleep until 10 or 11 to get enough to function well but at around 9AM Eric woke up and suddenly threw the covers back over me to get up. He didn't mean to wake me up, he was too sleepy to realize he did it. Just as I was drifting back off, the phone rang. I knew it was Robert. It's already established that he's a "lark" and "larks" think 9:30AM is late. He was confirming our meeting and had the meeting time in his head as 11AM. I reminded him that it was noon and that I'm essentially a swing shift person with my work and class schedule. He apologized when I told him I really needed to sleep another hour. We hung up and I went back to bed.
The one electronic area where I out-shine Eric
I tried to go back to sleep knowing there was a good chance I was too awake to do it but as I started to drift off yet again I heard Eric muttering and slinging ethernet cables around. He and the dsl modem don't get along. If the connection drops, he can't seem to get it back up again. All I have to do is go in there and unplug it for 10 seconds then plug it back in. I think I'll watch him the next time to see what it is he does differently.
Why we have a router
Because the DSL modem only has one hookup for one computer and we each have more than one computer - not new, they're mostly old but still usable - we have a Linksys wireless router with a four-port switch for wired connections. That means we can plug four different computers or network printers into it and have any number of wireless computers. The wireless has been a problem and I have it turned off. Instead, we have long cables down the edge of our hall and around the edge of the living room so we can sit side by side in our recliners and play/work/study with our computers while we watch TV. Aren't we decadent?
Diagnosing the problem - not too techie and something non-techies should know/learn
Well this time, the modem would connect to earthlink properly (the top two lights, power and sync, were solid green), the WAN light (activity to earthlink) would flicker at first then stop but the LAN light (activity to our network) wouldn't even flicker once.
The router was blinking all of its lights on and off even for ports that had computers turned off. That means it was yelling for help. Normally, the lights are on or flickering for computers that are turned on and each flickers at a different rate. The usual fix of unplugging it for 10 seconds and plugging it back in didn't change that behavior, not a good sign. That means it was really confused.
Connecting my desktop PC's ethernet cable directly into the modem worked. That said the modem was OK. The messages it was sending were understood by my computer.
The problem was the router. I tried resetting the router to factory defaults by unplugging it for 10 seconds then plugging it in while holding the reset button for 30 seconds. After that it wouldn't power on at all. OK, the router was now dead. The warranty is long over so I let Eric take it apart to see if he could see a bad component. He couldn't. It wasn't fixable. He tested the AC adapter and said it was good. Dead router. Dead, dead router.
Where I try alternate methods to connect us
( Read more... )
Finally I crawled out from under the desk to think and noticed I had 15 minutes to clean up, get dressed and drive 15 minutes away. Whoops!
I got ready in record time but five minutes before noon the phone rang again. It was Robert. He was at Peet's coffee house waiting. I told him I was trying to get out the door and he said he was sorry he interrupted me. He thought I'd be in the car and thought he'd called my cell phone. He was worried I didn't know where Peet's was, even though we'd had a conversation a few days before about the restaurant that used to be in that spot. I reminded him that I'd eaten at The Good Earth many times when it was there and I knew exactly where to look for Peet's. I asked if Christine was there yet and she wasn't. She wasn't answering her cell phone, he said. I hung up and tried to reassemble my thoughts. Before I left, I attached Eric's long cable from the living room to the modem so he'd have internet access. In my rush out the door I forgot that I'd brought my class paperwork into the house. Usually my car is my library because the book and note studying happens during the gap between work and class unless I do it at work. The online studying happens at home. I'd planned to go over the case study over breakfast. *sigh* Best laid plans...
Anyway, I showed up about 15 minutes late without my paperwork and still not quite awake because I hadn't taken my adderall until I was headed out the door. If things had gone normally, I would have taken it right when I woke up. I also hadn't had much caffiene. When I looked for the $20 I got for the weekend, I couldn't find it. Was it in the jeans I wore the day before? Sometimes I put the cash in my pocket and I was wearing a different pair of jeans than the day before. Christine said she'd just gotten there five minutes before so don't worry. She had her copy of the case study. Robert didn't have his. Hmm... Christine bought us all a round of coffees. We're planning to meet there at noon every Saturday until we finish the case study. I'm on to buy them next Saturday. Later, I found the $20 hiding inside my checkbook.
**This section is techie-talk about the case study**
( Read more... )
Back home
I thought Eric said he was going to research replacement router prices while I was gone but instead, he was doing the incredibly big download he'd started the night before. He said that at this point I know a lot more about it than he does and he'd rather I do the research since I understand what the terms mean and he doesn't. His enormous download meant that I couldn't research replacement router prices using the dsl until it finished. He was two hours into a 3.5 hour download.
What to buy.. what to buy... I'll try to keep this "tech-lite"( Read more... )
To market, to market to buy a fat pig... er.. router
( Read more... )
Home again, home again, jiggity jig.
We got our weekly burritos and went home. We ate before I attempted to set the router up. I was two of HALT (Hungry Angry Lonely Tired) and technical tasks are best done with one or none of those. Last week I saw and bought the new release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail on DVD for really cheap! It had added features including a tour of filming sites. We watched the movie. I'd forgotten most of it. So had Eric. Then I set up the router. It was easy! Yay!
It makes me feel more confident all the time as I gain in experience with troubleshooting. I'm able to zero in on the problems pretty fast now. Solving them isn't as easy as I'd like yet, but that's getting better all the time. Networking is easy for me now. It's the PC's that frustrate me most.
