So you say the modem is dead?..NOOOOOO!!!

[[bass]-The Black Knight]

Well gang, sometime this evening, my trusty, dusty, always-overheats-and-makes-me-reset-it-so-I-bought-a-cheap-fan, when-they-say-it's-hot-they-mean-it, Westell DSL modem bought the farm. At least that's what Verizon tech support tells me. They also tell me I can't order another one until Monday.

I'm holding out hope that the problem is really on their end, and it will spontaneously start working again. But I'm not holding my breath.

In case you're wondering, yes, I'm at my parents' house right now to send this. No, their computer does not have the horsepower to run FL. (Just a little shy on processor.) So I'm offline for a bit. I'll try to keep up with what's going on from work and from other people's computers, but my guns have been silenced for a while.

I will try to get through the withdrawl symptoms as best I can. It will be a good test of character.

Talk to you soon,

TBK

[Hans Solo]

It is a common enough problem with adsl routers. The older ones actually come with a built in fan. Warranty on mine is running out soon, I'll be cutting some vent holes in the base, a hole in the top and mounting an 80mm 12v fan to it.

A seond option, for stand-alones, would be to remove the pcb from the case and mount it inside your pc where it gets good airflow, provided you have adequate ventilation inside you pc. And not a lousy, poorly designed "Cooling Certified" Antec Oven.

[[bass]-The Black Knight]

Thanks Hans! Now check this out:

It look to be working again!

I had done the standard DSL-let-it-sit-unplugged-for-30-mintues trick before, and that didnt' work. So either I've got a REALLY weird intermittant fault, or something went down on Verizon's netowrk and my modem got blamed. Since it was Black Friday (The day after Thanksgiving, when the retail stores hope to get "into the black") and since the Wal-Mar website got overloaded and shut down (and I'm guessing they had a lot of horsepower on THAT site) I'm guessing one of their switchers got messed up. The first guy I talked to (well, third if you count me getting transfered) couldn't reset one of the switches from his computer. He talked to his manager, who he said could get the screen to come up, and the manager blamed the modem

So we'll see. If for some reason I'm not available...well heck we still won't know will we? I'll probably order a backup modem on Monday. Then if it goes down, I can say "Nope! Tried that. Guess again!"

And if I was going to have problems, yes: the day the server went down is a good day. I will try to rescheudle the missed battles asap!

TBK