DSL problems.

[kevinam]

I have AOL DSL service. For the most part, it has been good, but problem. A week ago Saturday, the thing went out, and it hasn't been back on since. I am using dial-up which seems to be of the ultra slow variety. Anyway, after roughly 10 days of screwing around, AOL has now decided they want to send someone to my house, to fix it. I don't like that idea at all. I live by myself, and don't like people in my house, unless they are friends. Anyway, has anyone else had similar issues. Frankly, I don't understand why they just can't tell me what to do over the phone. Any ideas or similar experiences would be great...Kevin.

[LibertyorDeath]

1. This is definitely your problem right here

You use AOL DSL service

Seriously you should think about a different provider

AOL SUCKS IN SO MANY WAYS

I COULD NOT SAY IT LOUD ENOUGH OR LONG ENOUGH

AOL SUCKS!!!!!!!!!

[LibertyorDeath]

2. What operating system are you using ?

Have you tried winipcfg

what steps have you tried to restore your connection?

[kevinam]

3. I am using windows XP.

No, I haven't tried winipcfg, and frankly, I don't know what that is. For the first 5 days AOL said there was a dsl outage reported in my area (Georgia), and the phone company was working on it. Then they said they would recheck connections but that would take two business days. That didn't solve my problem, so they emailed me saying they wanted to send someone to my house.

When I go to the control panel and click on hardware, then the modem, it says this device is working properly. The thing that worries me. The night the DSL died, there was a really bad thunderstorm. Apparently, lightening struck pretty close, because it blew out two light bulbs, and tripped a circuit breaker. Otherwise, there seems to be no damage to the house. All other elec equipment is working fine. I am wondering if somehow, the lightening damaged a phone wire, but all my phones and devices hooked up to them are fine (two satelite receivers). As far as what I have done, not much of anything. The only thing AOL has told me to do is power cycle the modem. I have checked, and double checked all connections. I have changed the phone cord that runs from the modem to the wall. One thing I am considering doing is, where the phone line comes into the house is a box. I have been tempted to run a phone cord (pretty long) from this box to the modem, and see if it works. If it does, that would tell me if there is some type of wiring issue inside of my house. Otherwise, I am at a loss. Thanks for anyway you can help...Kevin.

[Madrone]

4. Your modem could be (and likely is) fried...

electrical storms that blew out lightbulbs???!!

Make sure when your tech comes out he/she brings an extra modem - that could VERY easily be where the problem lies. Modems + electrical storms = fried > not!

[kevinam]

6. I was thinking that...

and it very well may be the problem. I hooked a phone to the 'output' on the modem and it is working. I would think that if the modem was fried the computer wouldn't tell me it is working properly. If it is the modem, I don't understand why the just don't mail me one. I had a modem fail last year, and they just sent one. Yea, it was a pretty nasty storm. I was sitting there watching tv, and next thing I know, the power in the den went out. I could see the lights were still on in the kitchen. When I went to the circuit breaker, it was tripped. When I clicked it on, two light bulbs were out. Struck me as fairly odd. My neighbor said it killed one of his tv's. Thanks for your help...Kevin.

[Madrone]

7. It is possible -

for windows to report the device as "working" when it is broken. It IS Windows, after all ;-)

I work for an ISP in a place that never (or so rarely we can comfortably say never) has electrical storms - we had a VERY mild "thunderstorm" (basically some not so impressive flashes of lightening and one far off rumble) a couple of months ago and lots of our customers on the same street ended up with fried modems after a power surge.

Where I'm from, in Michigan where there are REAL thunderstorms I would imagine it's more common. My mom's internal dial up modem was fried by a thunderstorm via the phone line a few years ago. She had the puter unplugged even - but didn't think to unplug the phone cord. ZAP. Put a fork in it.

[Kali]

5. I'm not too savy

But lightening partially damaged my modem a year ago - went through the extra surge protector (and I was told damaged it too) and my symptom was the modem would not hang itself up - had to manually unplug it. I tried all kinds of things and eventually just adapted. Finally got around to buying a new modem card and installed it. SAME DANG THING. Turned out it was the slot that went bad, not the card - when I put it in another expansion slot it worked fine.

I guess what I'm saying is yes it could have been lightening and try moving your modem card or getting another one - its the cheapest thing to try.