PCMech Forums - View Single Post - Networking: It's a black art, not a science.

edfair · 04-21-2006, 09:26 AM

Spent 3 hours yesterday with a friend with new Xyzel ?? DSL modem. After the 5th or 6th attempt to reach the control port and after a 5 minute wait it connected. But wouldn't talk to earthlink because of an indicated PW problem. Shoved the router back in the path and spent about 30 minutes before I got to the control port there to verify name and probable password.
This after 4 hours two weeks ago with India attempting to get them to acknowledge that the LAN port was blown on a Blastmax modem.
Tomorrow I get back to the house to trace down a phone problem that causes line 1 to ring when they get a call on line 2 and whether that is causing the modem to not link, or to link intermittently.
Doesn't help when the friend can't find the documentation where IP addresses have been stored or the sheet where I documented how his phone lines were cabled when I spent hours tracking down stuff when he wanted DSL to start with.
There are times when I feel like screaming too. Then I think back 45 years and remember having the same feelings working on equipment then. The only difference I can see is that users have become less capable of thinking for themselves. It may be that things have become more reliable and so they don't have to think most of the time, and therefore get out of practice.

04-21-2006, 09:26 AM	#23
edfair Member (11 bit) Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Tucker Ga. USA Posts: 1,303	Spent 3 hours yesterday with a friend with new Xyzel ?? DSL modem. After the 5th or 6th attempt to reach the control port and after a 5 minute wait it connected. But wouldn't talk to earthlink because of an indicated PW problem. Shoved the router back in the path and spent about 30 minutes before I got to the control port there to verify name and probable password. This after 4 hours two weeks ago with India attempting to get them to acknowledge that the LAN port was blown on a Blastmax modem. Tomorrow I get back to the house to trace down a phone problem that causes line 1 to ring when they get a call on line 2 and whether that is causing the modem to not link, or to link intermittently. Doesn't help when the friend can't find the documentation where IP addresses have been stored or the sheet where I documented how his phone lines were cabled when I spent hours tracking down stuff when he wanted DSL to start with. There are times when I feel like screaming too. Then I think back 45 years and remember having the same feelings working on equipment then. The only difference I can see is that users have become less capable of thinking for themselves. It may be that things have become more reliable and so they don't have to think most of the time, and therefore get out of practice.