Recently, we’ve been having connection problems with our cable. A few weeks ago there was a “known problem” with the network. I figured it might be the same thing. Actually, I thought it might be a virus/trojan doing the rounds (saturating the local loop).
So today, we finally had enough. The connection seemed to be ok during the day but it wasn’t working at night. I rang up Optus and spent 25 minutes on the phone going through their questions to try and figure out what was going on. At one point, I plugged a different ethernet cable into the cable modem and it started working. However, the symptoms weren’t consistent with a dodgy cable so I had a bit more of a look at it.
To explain the problem I’ll have to explain my setup.
After moving my computer to the garage, the cable modem and wireless router were placed into a small cabinet (because they’re in Isaac’s room). The cable modem is “designed” to stand vertically (as evidenced by the flared base) but it didn’t fit in the cabinet this way so I had it lying on it’s side. When I changed ethernet cables, one of the things I did was take the modem out of the cabinet and stand it up on the floor.
I realised what was going on when I went to put the modem back in the cupboard. I put it in and almost straight away the connection was lost again. Taking it out and reconnecting the ethernet cable made it work again. It seems that my cable modem has a loose connection. It’s so pronounced I can make the connection go up and down by holding the modem in my hand and rotating it. Rotated right, light goes on. Rotated left, light goes off. A hardware fault in our modem was what the Optus person had figured was going on. They said we should get someone out if we continued having connection problems. However, the solution was as simple as putting the modem on it’s other side in the cabinet.
Of course, this all begs the question, “why now and not before”? As far as I can tell the answer has to do with the cooler temperatures. The cable modem was put into the cupboard in November when Isaac was born and it’s been hot here until very recently, when it’s been cooling down at night. I think the cooler temperatures are causing a connection in the modem to become flaky. Rotating the modem works for now but I’m sure it won’t be too long before it needs to be fixed properly.
