June 02, 2006
Zapped
Storm - We had a fast moving, intense storm last night. Our cable modem/router got zapped and is dead. We won't have easy access to email and internet until I get it replaced and online.
The storm even took our cell coverage offline for a short spell. I'm not used to seeing the red LED "no service" light when in our house. Usually we have "4 bars" of coverage at our house (which is part of the reason we went with Nextel).
Claire and Abby were on the anxious side when I brought them up to bed. Claire was worried that a tree was going to fall on the house. I reassured her that our house was far enough away from the conservation land that the tall trees couldn't reach us.
Late last night I did a few tests with the modem. I tried a different 12V power supply in case it was just the transformer. I opened the case to see if there was a user replaceable fuse, but alas no. So I left the dead disassembled cable modem on the kitchen table for the boys to ogle when they came down the next morning. There was a lot of rapt attention this morning, especially from Curious Timbo(tm). I have a cute picture of him with it that I'll have to upload soon...
That was a heck of a storm! I was driving home as it was mounting and got nice views of the thunderheads and some lightning as I was coming into Nashua.
I lost cable TV and internet last night. They appeared to be functioning, just that there was no signal. Hopefully evrything will be working tonight and something didn't break on me
Posted by: Will at June 2, 2006 02:04 PMMan, what a reminder that we need to get some higher end power strips and have some of the electric in this place updated. I'm not sure what would be worse ... forking over the cash to replace the gear or being without my Internet connection for the time it takes to get that done. Oh, wait. It would definitely be the cash. I can actually see some real benefits to a forced exile from the Web... at least for a while!
Posted by: Ernesto at June 3, 2006 08:33 PMHi Ernesto,
Part of me thinks the surge came in through the cable line. On the back of the computer desk is an APC brand UPS (enough 3 letter acronyms for ya?). Everything on the desk (including the cable gateway) was plugged into it. Only the cable modem was smoked. Curious...
Luckily my office is near the Solomon Pond Mall. Otherwise the Nashua exit 1 mall area is about 40 minutes from our house. I went to Best Buy during my lunch hour and purchased a new cable gateway -- an exact Linksys replacement. When I got back to the office I called Adelphia to register a change in modem address. I would have plugged the new modem in when I got home Friday night, but my daughters had 3 friends doing sleepovers at our house, so I was a bit busy. I got up early this morning and bootstrapped the home network.
We've got a lot of stuff in the house that depends on that gateway: 3 TiVos, 3 computers, a laser printer, and a set of speakers. Luckily these days consumer networking equipment doesn't cost too much money. It was more of an inconvenience: buying a replacement, calling Adelphia, reconfiguring everything.
Posted by: Scott at June 3, 2006 09:30 PM