"Sir, do you have a toothpick or paper clip?"

[jinman]

I have to admit, I made the young lady repeat that question and then told her I had a sharp pencil. Would that do? Nope, it needs to be a toothpick or paper clip. "Okay," I said. "I'll get a toothpick and come right back.":confused3:

So with toothpick in hand, I returned to my computer desk and picked up the phone to tell the tech support lady I had retrieved my "high tech" tool. She told me to look on the back of my DSL modem and insert the toothpick into the tiny "Reset" hole and press until the lights all went out and the modem restarted.

Thus began the 45 minute process of troubleshooting why I had no Internet access since Saturday afternoon. I recently got DSL in my area and I love it. Last Saturday, the Power, Ethernet, and DSL lights on my modem were on, but the Internet light dropped out. I called tech support at CenturyLink (my phone company) and they said there was an outage in my area that would be corrected in a couple of hours. After two hours, the Internet light did return, but after going out to dinner and returning home, it was out again. So, I was patient and waited all of Sunday and half of yesterday for the service to be restored, but it didn't happen. I still have a Verizon Wireless modem until the 28 of Aug, so I just plugged that into my computer and used it in the interim.

After having me do a few things on my end, the tech support lady told me she was getting a technician to help and she had me run a couple of ping tests. She asked me to hold and went off the line for about 10 minutes and then returned to tell me that they had found the problem and she wanted me to reboot the modem again. This time all was normal and the Internet light illuminated as normal with the expected result of being back online.

I was pretty impressed with the folks at CenturyLink and their tech support. They were courteous at all times and I never felt like they wanted anything but to help me. It took some patience on my part, but it paid off. I'll keep my "toothpick tool" handy for future needs. I'll tape it to the side of my modem. :laughing:

 

[radioman]

yup- I used to tell the customers I talked to to reset thier dlink routers as well with a paperclip. You wouldn't beleive most of the incredulous looks I get about paperclip or pushpin.

 

[sweettractors]

Been there and done that a few times. Our local Phone service provider is also is my DSL provider and they are also very knowledgeable and helpful. A ink pen works on mine as well as toothpicks and paper clips. A 1 hour troubleshooting call is not uncommon and patience is a virtue I could use more of. Ken Sweet

 

[frogfish]

I. I'll keep my "toothpick tool" handy for future needs. I'll tape it to the side of my modem. :laughing:

Actually I've seen guys with them in their mouth, usually in the side, never thought much about them but they must be IT guys :laughing:

 

[dmccarty]

...Last Saturday, the Power, Ethernet, and DSL lights on my modem were on, but the Internet light dropped out. I called tech support at CenturyLink (my phone company) and they said there was an outage in my area that would be corrected in a couple of hours. After two hours, the Internet light did return, but after going out to dinner and returning home, it was out again. So, I was patient and waited all of Sunday and half of yesterday for the service to be restored, but it didn't happen...

That is very interesting. Our DSL is with CenturyLink and we lost Internet on Saturday as well. It was on. Then off. Then on. Finally off. We reset the modem to no avail. Customer service did a bit of this and that and said they would have to have other people look at the problem. It took a couple of hours but eventually they restored service. I wonder if our outage was related to yours. That would be one heck of a big network problem.

Embarq/CenturyLink has been pretty good for the most part. Only had one dumb .... of a repair guy send out to fix the network. He was blaming the wiring when the problem was in their network. Eventually he realized I was right and did what he should have done at first which was talk to the network guys. He would have saved a couple of hours of time. But he was the exception. They have been really good. And we are danged lucky to have DSL.

What is frustrating is that we have a low speed DSL connection. They have a high speed line that passes a mile to our front, goes a mile or so west, and then head south on another road. The other road does not have as many houses on it was we do but it does lead farther out in the county. They just wont improve the speed in our neighborhood.

The super big tease is the fiber optic cable they ran to the cell tower 1.25 miles north of us! :drool:

Later,
Dan

 

[sweettractors]

That is weird, Our electric power went of Sat morning for about 1 1/2 hours with no storms in the area.(just before lunch) In a 5 minute time period the power surged on and off 15 times. I am glad I have battery backups on all my computers. Ken Sweet

 

[Bird]

Jim, I've been there, too, with CenturyLink (was Centurytel when I started) and I do have both toothpicks and paperclips handy here.:laughing: Although usually when we've had an outage and I call, they said it's out in the Lake Dallas area and they're working on it. They usually get it back up pretty soon.

Another odd thing is that we have more power outages here in town than we did out in the country. Saturday afternoon, the power was out for several hours across the street, but ours never even flickered that day.

 

[jinman]

Last Friday afternoon between 1 pm and 3 pm, we had eight or nine power outages with brownouts. When we called, the coop power company told us we were lucky because just south of us, nobody had any power for over an hour and they didn't know what was causing the problem. Just the previous week on Thursday, we had a similar event during a thunderstorm. I think the power grid is taxed to the max with the summer heat. Kathy and I have decided to give each other 1/2 of an emergency generator for our birthdays next month.:thumbsup:

Dan, your description of the CenturyLink crash is just too much exactly like ours to be a coincidence. I'd bet we were part of the same problem(s). BTW: We have 3 Mb/s download and .5 Mb/s upload speed. When it works, it's fine.

 

[dooleysm]

We were just switched to Frontier from Verizon. Lo and behold, Frontier offers DSL to my house, where Verizon never did. Signed up for it last week. WiFi modem arrived yesterday. I got the DSL landline connected but ran out of steam getting the wifi set up. Should be relatively easy.

Frustratingly, I finally pulled the trigger on a Verizon air card and router this past spring, so I've got that hardware to contend with. I transferred the contract over to my parents and converted it to a voice plan. I was lucky that they were shopping for a plan. Still would have been worth it though, as the DSL service is much faster and cheaper than the air card.

 

[Skyco]

Another odd thing is that we have more power outages here in town than we did out in the country. Saturday afternoon, the power was out for several hours across the street, but ours never even flickered that day.

Funny you say that- 27 years ago we bought a place "in the country" although not so much anymore. I anticipated frequent power outages and picked up a 6kW generator, since without power we are also without water. Turns out the power went out at least 10 times more often in town than it does out here...who knew. I think I've actually used the generator twice in 27 years and for no more than a couple of hours even then...it gets drug out of the garage and run every month, oil changed once a year, and gas changed every 6 months...JIC.

I have a $100 toothpick to reset stuff with--a Leatherman with a tiny interchangeable eyeglass sized screw drive blade. Which handily turns out is also the exact size to clean out the bar groove on my chainsaw. Once in awhile I even tighten eyeglass screws with it

BTW my high speed is on Time Warner Cable and quite frankly they sucked for years but have improved greatly the last few years. Used to be when it went out it was out for days. Now it almost never goes out.:thumbsup: