computers again

deacon

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Saturday night I'm watching an old movie on tv. I have two other windows open in the background and suddenly there is a near miss lighten strike. The two windows behind the buffered movie close. I know the dsl is shut down but what the heck it happens often when it rains. I finish the movie. When the buffer runs out the movie isn't finished so I go down and pull the modem power plug wait ten second and plug it in. All the right lights come on but no internet service. I went to bed./

Sunday I called the tech support in bangladesh or some such place. He walks me though about a dozen diagnostics and says Must be something wrong with the mode,... Yeah.

So this morning a service tech shows up. He finds that the modem has lost its memory. But this could only happen sir if you tried to reset it. "How the heck do you reset one. I wouldn't even know where to start."

"There is this little hole in the back that accesses the memory. You had to have pushed it with a pin, it happens now and then."

"I didn't push anything all i did was plug it and unplug it a dozen times."

"Sir that is the only way the modem could have lost it's program... the lightening couldn't have done it and the wireless router couldn't have done it, the only way is if you or someone else pushed in that little pin hole."

After twenty minutes I finally said, "I believe you believe there is no other way, but there has to be because I DID NOT push in that reset not did anyone else."

I know it's foolish to argue with a serviceman but they have definitely told him the wrong thing. There has to be some other explanation. It was a dsl light modem. I have a new modem because I insisted that whatever happened might well happen again because I didn't do it. This one has a seal over the push hole so there will be no question if it goes out. Which is highly unlikely.

Anybody know if a lighting surge near miss can case a computer to lose it's memory. The dsl is hooked up to an unshielded telephone line which runs along outside the house.
 
Deacon,
I feel for you, My internet goes out ALL THE TIME,, The cable guys say it's something in the house, that I should call an electrician(I have a AS degree in industrial electrical... Hmmmm, what's my phone #) OK, OK, I checked and changed all outlets(like 40 of them), grounded the cable connection to the circuit box buss ground, checked and reseated the house ground... nothing makes a difference, it's always the other guys problem(says cable guy) as far as the modem reset button, mine doesn't do squat, and I've pushed it many times, but I will say lightning can do strange things, all I have to do now is "jiggle" the cable connection after I loosen it(there's a professional fix huh) mind you the TV must be on when the "jiggle" happens.
Just figured I'd let you know your not alone!!!

Mac
I
 
I think it's a conspiracy why I have no idea and for what purpose I have even less of an idea unless it is for the cable company to replace the old AT&T as the worlds most sinister corporation. Men in black replaced by men in cable vision uniforms.
 
Here's a list of troubleshooting steps for phone line / cabling (not cable modem cable but might apply some)

1. Use as short of a phone cord as possible the wires in the wall are solid copper the wire in a phone cord is like thread so those nice cheap 30 foot cords are fine for a handset not for dialup or DSL and winding them up creates a field effect IMO

2. Do not run wires near any appliances like florescent lights or air conditioners they put off a lot of RF interferance your connection will be very intermittant if you do.

3. A lot of techs are arrogant pricks never argue just ask questions and pretend to be amazed at his geenarse

4. When you reset the modem either kind do it in order...shut off modem router puter then turn modem on first wait for it to handshake should take less than a minute then turn on the router same thing let it handshake should take 30 seconds or less it is local traffic then turn on puter and wait till it get happy as well

5. If you have speed issues go to a dos prompt by clicking start run type in COMMAND hit < enter >
At the dos prompt type in tracert www.motorbycicling.com < enter >
this will give you the adress of every hop you go thru to get here...any hop that has a high number much over 100 is a culprti to report to your ISP if it is part of their equipment usually only the first 3 or 4 hops belong to them
You can also create a text file easily by typing tracert www.motorbicycling.com >c:\mbtracert.txt < enter >
This generates a text file you can send to your isp of the tracert report it will be located in the root of the c drive named mbtracert.txt
If you do this troubleshooting they are less likely to blow smoke up your arse LOL

Hope this helps...btw a surge sure as heck can reset the memory on the modem U ain't crazy LOL I wouldn't buy a new modem tho but they shoulda been able to fix that with a phone call to tech support...unless they's paranoid about you hackin their equipment.
 
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It happens the only thing you can do is move on. Not sure how experienced the tech that came to your house was, but Im guessing the hard reset that happened during the lightning DID infact cause the memory flush on your modem. im a network guy so i know a little about these things. It'd be a good idea to backup the config on your cable modem on your computer as a .txt file so if it happens again you can simply upload the config and be on your way. In order to back it up you might have to call bangladesh again to walk you through it.
 
There is only one explanation.


gizmo-gremlins-picture.jpg

You got him wet or fed him after midnight didn't you! COME ON ADMIT IT!!!
 
You know I have been working with computers a while... I have been working with cameras lighting equipment and phones a lot longer. I am almost positive the "They are paranoid about customers hacking their equipment" statement is true. He sounded as though he were spouting a company line.

He was a true believer in that "only me reseting the modem could have done the memory wipe" statement. If that were truly the case, then it could not have happened because I know for a fact that I did NOT reset anything. I turned it off and back on. he was talking about depressing a switch like on a digital watch then wiping the memory. I didn't even know there was a depression switch. (netopia modem)

I going with the gremlin and/or the conspiracy to take over the world theory.
 
Those guys have a very limited education on what their working on. If it ain't in their book it must have been your fault. They mostly do not know how to trouble shoot a burnt out light bulb.
 
I'm betting your problem is that nobody's getting paid enough to give a flying rat's ass about your problem. A fair portion of the money large corporations get from us is going to the above line executives as bonuses for their wonderful efforts trimming the company expenses and finding nefarious ways of bringing in more income. More often than not those expenses are trimmed off their employees (or should I say their "human resources"), the quality of materials and customer care.

Just get used to the fact that we're getting less for more and it won't stop till enough of us raise our fists, yell out that "we're mad as **** and we're not taking it anymore" and quit buying into all the propaganda we're being fed.
 
Well since they installed the new modem last week, I have had to do the reboot of the network three times. I swear I would go back to dial up in a minute if my wife didn't get so bent out of shape when I tie up the line for hours.
 
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