On Tuesday night, after chatting with M and then playing a little City of Heroes, I left my PC and did a few things around the house. Then I came back to the machine and had difficulty getting online again. Since it wasn't important, I didn't worry about it. I went to bed.
Wednesday morning, I came out to check my email before going to work. Still couldn't connect to the internet. I rebooted the machine, released and renewed the IP, unplugged and replugged in the router and modem. Nothing. 'Oh well, I'll deal with it when I get home,' I thought.
Got home, and same thing. Now I'm concerned. It is nearly 24 hours later and still nothing. I called Cox Cable support. After going through the Tier 1 service, I was forwarded to Tier 2. She ran through a lot of interesting suggestions. What was crazy was that she could see my modem and PC on her end, I just couldn't get out to the internet from my end. Finally, she had the idea of trying to connect my modem using the USB port directly to my PC. That worked!
I chatted with M for about an hour, my buddy Chris for a few minutes, and then tried to put in a new network card as the Tier 2 person determined that the problem must be my network port, since everything else seemed to be working.
As I turned off the PC, I disabled the motherboard port in the BIOS. Then I installed the network card, and rebooted. Still, I could not connect. I then did everything Tier 2 did to re-setup my modem to use USB, only now I still can't connect to the internet. I try everything I can think of, again, to resolve the issue. Nothing.
It is at this point that I notice the name of my machine is changed. I notice in the Device Manager that some of my ports and system IDs are different than how I set them.
So, I back up a few files and format my hard drive and re-install Windows XP. Sure enough, within moments I get my modem back up and working. I go through the entire re-install process, and get my router working again.
Now my PC Device Manager settings are back to what they should be. My only conclusion is that, somehow, someone may have gotten through my firewalls and virus/spyware protections and reset some things so they could use/manipulate/control my machine. Or, maybe, that a Windows update updating something that shouldn't be and caused me some grief.
However, it does appear that my motherboard network port is still not functioning. Which is unfortunate, because it is the better/higher-speed network port (I'm using my old 10/100 Linksys network card right now). But at least everything seems to be calming down and getting back to normal.
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Remember when I told you MSN sent "something" to my computer and totally screwed it up? Perhaps you too have been blessed.
ReplyDeleteFace it, computers are evil. Typewriters and file folders are the way to go -- Slow but sure. Nothing short of a toddler or a housefire corrupts good ol' manila folders. And file cabinets are spam-proof, too.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I angry about computers? The hard drive sitting on my desk as a paperweight is the first clue. But at the moment, my computer refuses to talk to the work server and has "misplaced" all files more than 60 days old. I've resorted to keeping a sledgehammer in my office and periodically shaking it at the computer. When it senses that I am serious enough, the screen flickers and it will occasionally regurgitate the file I need. Don't tell me it's an inanimate object. Those 1's and 0's are alive, and they're hostile, I tell you.
If you really want to like your computer again, consider a Macintosh with OS X.
ReplyDelete