Aaargh
A few days back I mentioned how computer programming errors, which can be maddeningly difficult to solve, are often due to something completely obvious staring you in the face. Yet you never see it until, well, you see it. Instead you engage in much gnashing of teeth and burrowing through the code until, oh, you realize you did something air-headed. At least that’s been my experience – and that of other programmers too.
I just did this with hardware. My main PC had been acting oddly. When it rebooted, it would lose connection to the net. So, I’d unplug the router and modem, wait for modem to recycle, reboot, and was back on the net. Most odd.
Yesterday I got a new computer, tested it there, it went on the net fine. Plugged it in at home, and – no internet. Even more bizarre, it could find the router, but the other PC, which could access the net, couldn’t find the router.
This led to much gnashing of teeth, and calling friends knowledgeable about networks and routers. No one had a clue. Called the router tech support. The first tech, after trying lots of things, hadn’t a clue either, and bounced me up a level.
After 15 minutes, the senior tech almost in passing said, so the modem cable is plugged into the wan port on the router, right? And I looked at the router and started laughing because, Lordy, while moving equipment around a while back, I’d accidentally plugged the modem cable into the wrong port on the router.
And when I explained this to him, he was laughing too.