Went over to a co-worker of Donna’s tonight to hook up her DSL. To start, I’m not too sure the DVD that they sent was 100%, as it would hang each time the Next button was clicked. The only way to get it to advance was to eject the CD and then reinsert it. Then when it did get to the next page the display was garbled in the install window — some blank spots and new text over some of the last page’s text.
At step 5 when you are to choose the modem to install I was greeted with 6 square buttons and only one had a picture in it, the rest were blank. By (the slow) process of elimination I found the button for a Netopia modem. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same model as the Netopia modem she had. I soldiered on installing that one as it was the only one remotely correct..
After hooking up all the cables the DSL Sync light was still blinking. Crap. I then swapped off the Cat5 cable and tried hooking up to the PC with the USB cable. Same results. Rebooted modem. Still blinking. Rebooted PC and modem. Blink – blink- blink.
Gave up and called tech support. I had to go through a troubleshooting song and dance with an automated help system. “Yes.” “No.” “Continue.” “Continue.” When the computer was satisfied I really had a problem I was handed to a person. Richard was probably his American name, but his English was better than quite a few people I deal with on a daily basis at ASCO. He ran line tests and told me there was a problem and that a technician need to come out, so Lisa scheduled one for this Saturday.
She only had one phone in a jack and I placed a filter on that one. I tested the long phone cord I brought with me with her phone to make sure it was OK. I plugged her phone in the jack the DSL line was plugged in to make sure the jack was OK. I figure it has to be a bad modem, because even if I didn’t have the exact correct driver from the CD I would still get a sync light if the line was good.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 488
I had similar signal problems with a 2Wire DSL modem through Bellsouth. They ultimately determined that the line in the house was not providing a strong enough signal and they ran a dedicated line from the outside junction box to where I wanted the modem to sit. No problems since then. I have found the phone repair crew to be more knowledgable than the cable crew.
I figured it out. Because of the location of the phone jack in the room the PC was in, the supplied phone cable was not long enough. I brought a 12′ piece of phone wire to use. When the modem didn’t sync the first time I thought of my wire, but when I plugged the phone in it worked, so I assumed it was OK. This evening after work we went over and for the heck of it tried to 8′ red phone cable supplied. The modem synced right up! I scoffed when she told me a Bell South rep told her to go buy a longer DSL phone cable at Radio Shack. Go figure.