When routers go bad…

 

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my internet connection over the last three days. Each night the connection dropped and it took ages to reconnect. It came to a head this morning when my router had once again disconnected, but refused to reconnect.

I phoned the support number for the ISP and they were very helpful, but life can get a little tricky when you don’t have a Windows PC to plug into the ADSL modem they supply. After a little messing around they agreed to escalate my issue.

While I was waiting I went to the local PC World store and bought a new router, just in case. I got home and as soon as I plugged it in it connected. Typical…

So this is my third router now. The first one started to smoke. The second died silently and smokelessly. Let’s see how long this one lasts.

Cheers

Tim…

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

3 thoughts on “When routers go bad…”

  1. Tim,

    I feel your pain- wish the world would convert to Linux and Mac OS X. That way, real Unix OS routing and network commands could be used to better configure networks. But that would require folks to be tech savvy.

  2. I have a Linksys WRT54G and it dies randomly. I can ping outside from the router interface, the internal network works fine but I can’t connect to any external site. Its a weird problem and the only fix I have gotten to work is to reset it to factory defaults and set it up again.

    Sometimes it loses the wireless security settings as well so I had to setup a script to check it and page me. I guess I should bite the bullet and get another router as well. Or I could try something like Tomato on it.

    Funny thing, the first time it happened and I called support they blamed the problem on “electrostatic interference” since we had thunderstorms in the area.

  3. You might consider running a firewall/router on a PC, rather than purchasing yet another inexpensive router box at the store. This may allow you to gain more functionality and perhaps better reliability without expense. I like the open source, linux-based routers. I have been using Vyatta community edition and have been very pleased.

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