My four year-old Motorola Modem finally bit the dust. Poor thing worked beautifully for years before going to heaven.
So I trooped down to the ATT store and bought another one. Plugged it in. Up popped the ID box, so I put in the 6 digit code and the Modem Access number and was good to go.
Until the next morning when I turned on the computer and the little yellow warning sign popped up on the bottom bar. When I clicked on that it told me the PPoE had failed. So I logged on manually, plugged in the ID numbers and was good to go.
Until the next morning when I turned on the computer and the little yellow warning sign popped up. Called the ATT tech line and spoke with a very nice man named Steve or Joey or Fred in Mumbai. He marched me through the same log on procedure that I had done two mornings ago, then assured me positively, absolutely that would fix the problem once and for all. Which it did.
Until the next morning when I turned on the computer and the little yellow warning sign popped up. Called the ATT tech line and got Joey this time and I explained the problem. So he proceeded to march me through the exact same steps and positively, absolutely assured me the problem was now fixed totally forever.
Until the next morning when the little yellow warning sign popped up again. This time I spoke to Carmen who concluded that something must be wrong with the modem; somehow, for some reason, it wasn’t holding onto the log-in information, and suggested I take it back to the ATT store and exchange it. Which I did.
The new modem worked perfectly for a day or two then up popped the yellow warning flag. So I was back on the phone to Fred in Mumbai who, yes, walked me through the same procedure and assured me absolutely, positively the problem was solved. Which it was.
Until the next morning.
This time I drove down to the ATT store, walked into the midst of a gaggle of fine young gentlemen, flung my arms wide and said, “I want to talk to the biggest, baddest, geekiest, nerdiest highest tech person in the house.” A nice young man stepped up to claim that title and I explained what was happening with the Ghost Modem from Hell. He was totally stumped. Had never heard of anything like that happening. When I asked who within the whole ATT organization could I call and talk to who might know what was going wrong. “Oh,” said he cheerfully, “That would be the Tech units”
In Mumbai.
One final call got me Carmen in Somewhere and while she was stumped, she did manage to route the log-ins through another program in my computer and so far it’s working.
Until it doesn’t.
BOT ATTACK
In an effort to make it easier for readers to log on and comment, on advice of another blogger, I decided to risk removing the Captcha requirement. Which was fine, until it wasn’t, and a spam bot showed up. So back goes the Captcha. Sorry for the inconvenience. I’ve left the comment section on “anyone” since there’s a lot of anonnymice who are not Crazies but are still anonnymice who might like to comment but are scared to do so. And, like Spam itself, nothing deters some of the crazier Sewer Crazies. So Captcha at this point will have to do with hopes that solves the problem.
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8 comments:
I solved the AT&T DSL modem issue another way. In Baywood, my DSL speed was 768kb. When AT&T decided to up the monthly to $25, I moved on. For $30 ($40 after a year), I moved to Charter cable for my internet service (no phone or TV package) at 65 times faster downloads. AT&T admitted that they simply could not compete.
Ah, hah. Glad that worked out for you. I've heard pro and cons on Charter. What's so odd about this problem is nobody seems to know why the problem is happening. My Computer Tutor seems to think it may be the phone lines, but the modem never cuts out while I'm actually on line. Only after a nice overnight nap, which makes no sense to me, but then, what do I know.
We had a ghastly problem for a while with internet/cable reception from Charter (not the phone) until a tech guy came out and noted that the wires from the pole to the house were ancient, compromised with crud and in need of replacement. Which he replaced. Other than the very occasional glitch, things work perfectly now.
Yup, that's Los Osos. A few years ago my phone would conk out, especially when it rained, so I'd troop to a pay phone and call it in and the same nice man would come out and he'd go to the same pole each time and fix it. Told me the wiring out here is ancient. Think they may have upgraded a bit since that hasn't happened for a while. But what remains odd about this modem problem is the connection doesn't break when I"m on the line. It only loses it's marbles after it's been turned off. Like it's little memory can't remember the log-in info for some reason. And, the real puzzle, why NOBODY at ATT seems to have a clue why it would do this, not even Steve in Mumbai.
Big bummer, that's for sure. i am no expert on these things, but could it be some computer glitch, like some setting is wrong for this new modem? It is sending some code to the modem to not allow it to log-in? Good luck, this sounds super annoying!
/Toonces: Have no clue. What's so weird is apparently NOBODY at ATT knows either. I did get a call back (message on my machine) from somebody at ATT but don't know how long she'll play phone tag.
PS to the modem story: Finally an ATT rep called back; turns out its an issue with the Motorola Modem, the way it's been configured. It needs to be linked up on the "always attempt to connect" mode rather than some of the other options and apparently that information hasn't yet reached all the Freds, and Steves, and Tonys in Mumbai (or even the ATT store here in SLOTown. So, problem solved. . . . I hope.
Good luck, hope this is the end of it! Thanks for writing about the solution, it will go in the back pocket for possible use in the future with our next modem blow-out! This stuff is so convoluted, like so many things we deal with these days. But I doubt we'd want to go back to the "simple life" either. Ice blocks in "refrigerators" comes to mind....
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