[Tfug] Slightly OT: Weird home networking issue

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Christopher,

On 2/22/2013 6:36 PM, Christopher Robbins wrote:
> I'll be perfectly honest (since everyone is curious to know what I was
> thinking :-) ) - I was hoping it was something stupid that someone had seen
> before, given that most everyone around here is dealing with CenturyLink or
> one of the usual cable providers...Possibly a random setting that I may
> have overlooked or something that I could easily enable/disable, if only to
> relieve some temporary pain until I got a replacement device.

As I said, *I* had a similar problem with a Qwest router "reseting"
spontaneously.  *I* traced this to a "random setting" -- the radio
being enabled!  After several "mysterious" dropped connections
(typically most noticeable when pulling down large ISO's), I
managed to be *at* the computer when such an event occurred and
quickly glanced at the router sitting across the room -- in time
to see the unit reset itself.

Disabling the radio was the last I saw of that problem (we use wired
connections for everything, here, so the radio was superfluous).

I have since encountered several bad wall warts for that sort of
router leading me to suspect the wall wart in ours may have been
complicit (we no longer use Qwest so I've never pursued this -- other
than to offer my observations to you, here)

> My office is
> on the other side of the house (where the switch sits) compared to where my

So, you can't just "look up" and see what the router is doing when
it crashes...

> DSL router is (connected via 1Gbps in the walls) - it's been a big thorn in
> my side the past 2 days.

Turn off the radio in the router.  If you need wireless access,
attach the Airport (?) to a wired port in the router or another
switch.  See if that gives you more reliable service.  (it only
"costs" a few seconds to access the configuration page and
disable the radio).  At the very least, it gives you more data
on how the device behaves (and, when your replacement arrives,
might give you hints as to what you can expect to encounter
with *it* -- esp if it is same make/model!)

> I may try a DSL router from Monoprice, if only because the gear I've used
> from them has been fairly reliable...That's the problem with consumer-grade
> stuff like this - it's not incredibly easy to hookup a terminal cable like
> a Cisco or Juniper device and dump logs and config information willy-nilly.

There's a reason it's less expensive ("cheaper"  :> )!  And, if
it's something that the designers didn't anticipate (e.g., bad
power), chances are the logs won't give you much direct evidence
(other than "reset at XX:XX") of the problem.