<p>I’m writing this with the hope that someone can direct me, and that CC won’t go down tomorrow, when I look for responses (had several hours the last couple of days when I couldn’t get on CC).</p>
<p>Just finished painting our little study, and when I was moving the desk back in place, decided to organize all the power cords, etc., which meant unplugging them, one at a time, then plugging them back in. But when I turned the desktop back on, it cannot connect to the internet.</p>
<p>We have a DSL cable line from Comcast, and a Linksys wireless system. Right now, I’m ‘borrowing’ from some neighbor in order to get this post written, but after this, I will check responses from my phone. H spent a bit of time tonight trying to figure out why it won’t connect, but couldn’t figure it out.</p>
<p>I’m guessing it must have something to do with the order I unplugged and plugged power cords back in???</p>
<p>It shouldn’t have anything to do with the order in which you plugged your power cords back in but try this in this order - </p>
<ol>
<li>Power off then on the Comcast unit. Wait 2 minutes.</li>
<li>Power off then on the wireless router. Wait 2 minutes.</li>
<li>Power off then on (or reboot) you PC.</li>
</ol>
<p>See if the internet is now working.</p>
<p>If not, make sure you didn’t accidentally knock one of the other cables out of place - the cable from the Comcast to your wireless router and the cable (if not using wireless) from the wireless router to your (direct connected) computer. If you don’t direct connect and only use wireless then ignore the last bit I just stated.</p>
<p>Do you mean that you have DSL from ComCast or Cable from ComCast? I thought that they only did cable but maybe they piggyback the phone system in some areas.</p>
<p>If things aren’t working after the instructions above, you could try connecting your computer directly to your modem bypassing the router. This will eliminate the router as the cause of problems though you might have to setup your computer to supply authentication information to the modem.</p>
<p>ComCast has a reputation for excellent service and they may have a phone tech support to help you through your outage. I’ve used the tech support from India in similar cases from Verizon DSL support a few times when we’ve had similar problems. I’ve also replaced routers that seem to have died on me.</p>
<p>I can only help you with really stupid stuff because that is where my experience lies. Do you have to enter a password to connect to your wireless router? My son could not connect to the internet and I spent about an hour troubleshooting before I figured out that I was using the wrong password. The software does not give you a “wrong password” message. It just goes ahead and acts like it is not connecting properly to the internet.</p>
<p>This type of thing is something I’m famous for doing, since I’m always moving furniture around. One thing that I’ve done more then once, is forget to reconnect the router to the modem. After that, I think you got a lot of good advice. Make sure the phone line is connected to the router…and the modem to the router. Make sure everything is plugged into an electrical source (I’ve forgotten this one too). Make sure power is off on everything. First power on, the router…when all the lights are steady, not blinking, turn on the modem. wait till you have a steady green light( on mine). Then power on the computer…see how it works. If all this fails, then do as suggested above and call technical service for comcast. They are usually good about walking people thru. You may need to do a reset, but if you pressed the button on the back of the router…you may well need tech assistance for them to walk you through the reset.</p>
<p>I don’t think I can even count how many times I’ve done this myself, lol. Good luck, I know its frustrating when the computer goes down.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your help. Unfortunately, it was not an easy solution, but the fix only cost me $9.99. Comcast was able to determine the modem was working properly, so they suggested I call Linksys, which I did. Was on the phone with them for over an hour, and we got the desktop up and running; they offered to help re-establish my wireless connection with the laptop, but for that, there was a charge of $9.99. That part alone took almost 30 minutes and I know the Geek Squad would have charged much, much more, so I feel fortunate. Am back on line ‘for real’, and not 'borrowing; it feels good.</p>
<p>By the way, I still don’t know what the problem was… just that it was fixed, and involved lots of disconnecting and reconnecting of ethernet cables and power cords, then resetting the IP address, etc. I had to laugh when the guy would ask me for a model number or serial number from behind the computer… I felt like a monkey squeezing back there, then the codes were so small I had to get a flashlight to read them. Don’t know if I could do this ten years from now. Really, someone ought to create functional, large office desks on wheels for occasions like this!</p>
<p>I’m amazed that ComCast didn’t help you with your router. Verizon has helped me several times with resetting or reconfiguring my router when it was stuck or had problems. Yes, it was someone in India reading a script but it didn’t cost anything.</p>
<p>I’m glad you’re back up. I agree with bceagle - Comcast should have helped you get this running since it sounds like it was related to their connection. There’s also no need for anyone to know the serial number of your computer or probably even the model number but it was probably fun squeezing back there anyway.</p>
<p>If it happens again and you’re certain the cables weren’t changed or are intact, and if you have Windows, you can always try to open a command window and enter “ipconfig /renew” which will cause your PC to communicate on the network to obtain a new IP address. It sounds like maybe that’s what you ended up doing. Normally you shouldn’t have to do this.</p>
<p>The worst for me is entering Microsoft Windows License keys.</p>
<p>A simple solution: take a picture of the numbers with a digital camera in closeup mode, put it on your computer and zoom in. I have an 8 MP camera which generally makes things more than large enough. Then email it to yourself so that you have the information whenever you need it.</p>
<p>If that doesn’t work, get a college student with good vision to read it to you.</p>
<p>^^ BCeagle-
If your computer/internet connection isnt working, does that photograph/email it to yourself strategy work??? How could you see the info if you cant get to your email???</p>
<p>If you need something small right away, the photo from your digital camera gives you the information that you need to get up and running. You can then email it to yourself for use when you need it again. You would need to store your email locally for this to work.</p>
<p>This is fairly easy to do with an email service like Google Mail. They provide iMap services so that you can use an email client like Thunderbird that can save your emails offline while they also stay on Gmails servers so that you can access them when you’re online and access the emails automatically downloaded when you are offline.</p>
<p>ucsd dad - while they did ask for the computer make, they did not ask for the computer serial number, etc.; they were asking for the model/serial number for the router… in the end it didn’t matter as those numbers were just as small as the ones on the computer. :eek:</p>
<p>And yes, ipconfig was one of the commands they had me type into the run bar. But there were many others. Embarassingly, I really think the whole thing was my fault; as I unplugged and plugged cables and cords back in, I may have ‘inadvertently’ not gotten some back in the correct spot. We spent a LOT of time doing that, and when all was said and done, I (go on and laugh now) curiously ended up with one ethernet cable that had no use (I completely removed it, although I can’t remember where I removed it from), well at least that I’ve figured out yet, and everything seems to be working.</p>
<p>oh well, so much for an extra ethernet cable. Ends up it goes to the printer! Realized that when I tried to print something and nothing happened. Am glad I can provide such entertainment for you all.</p>
<p>To expand on ‘bceagle’s’ idea - take your digital camera, squeeze to the back side of your setup, and take detailed pictures of your cables plugged into the back of the equipment. this would be of the ‘labeled’ cables (hint). Keep the pictures on the computer in a place you’ll remember to retrieve them and then if you do this again you can refer to them to get them plugged back in correctly.</p>
<p>Take a piece of masking tape and label each cord to each plug-in hole with the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. (sorry if that sounds elementary)! We have just been w/o internet for more than 24 hours w/AT&T. Had to go thru all of the plugging and unplugging to make sure nothing was wrong with our modem/router as well. It was indeed an outside problem with our lines (or so we were told!) even tho neighbors on either side of us both still maintained their connections. At any rate, fortunately, our college student had labelled everything with numbers which made us technologically challenged old fogeys more adept at re-connecting everything. We even have cards printed that student constructed for running our other technological machines (DVD, scanner, etc). We knew at some point that we would need instructions as machines break down. Hope that helps!</p>