Friday, May 2, 2008

Routers and APs and Switches, Oh, My!

As I sat down to update this blog, I realized that I had no Internet connection. It wasn't surprising, since we had taken a power hit sometime during the day. I casually bounced downstairs to the network room to cycle the hardware only to find that the AP had no power. No power. Fried. Could it be as simple as a fritzed power supply? Do we have another 5V one lying around? No, of course not. Time, then, to install the "new" wireless router from what the Suburban Hausfrau refers to as Old Company. (To Veedub: Santa II).

My cooking partner is a former IT support person and had to get involved in the process, which is actually a good thing since I can't tell where any of the cables start and end in the network room. I won't say there were any egos involved, but it did take us about thirty minutes to complete the fifteen minute installation!

We are back in service with network security installed and, if I am not mistaken, with much faster download speed. We shoulda done this a long time ago!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

If ya want a G-Force (old model) I can hook you up. I still have two of those around that I bought to give my mom and the in-laws, but my mom already had a router and didn't know it and my in-laws have yet to get a real (non-dial-up) internet connection. Although, if you guys run an AP, a router would be kinda useless....

Our home system is actually Linksys (hey, even the "employee discount" at the time was not as cheap). To this day, anytime I have to log in, I'm kinda amazed at the lack of features. Sigh.

That Word Guy said...

Well, we're not using an AP anymore...not since the old one died. It was either Linksys or DLink. We had a mix and match AP/Router setup and I never could remember which was which.

Anyway, the old Santa II has been dropping WAN about every ten minutes or so. Really annoying. I downloaded the newest firmware tonight and it seems to be lasting a bit longer (fingers crossed), so we may be alright. Thanks for the offer and remember, there's always EBay!

Unknown said...

So... just as reliable as always, lol??

Seriously... if you are interested, let me know. They've passed the "year in a box" timeframe. I got one to give to my mom and one to give to my in-laws, only to find out my mom already had a wireless router.

It can be yours for the price of a Roly Poly half sandwich.....