Modems, Routers and Wireless Cards; The Park

This entry started last Wednesday, but about halfway through, my DSL connection went missing. And no amount of manipulations or contortions would bring it back.

I spent several hours on Thursday with a number of technicians before I finally got my DLS service back via the Westel 6100.

Next I tried to connect the Netgear router (WGT624), but again no luck. So Friday and Saturday, I spend another several hours on the phone with technicians in India. You wind up with cables from the phone jack to the modem, and from the modem to the router, and from the router to the laptop. But no access to the web through this configuration.

By the way, the WGT624 does not show as such under the device manager. Instead, it's listed as the Realtek RTL81/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC.

After lots of re-setting of the router and changing parameters that I'm not sure I understood, the final solution was to do a system restore to a system checkpoint on Wednesday night. If I'd thought of that I could have done that as soon as I began to have problem.

So now I had access to the Internet through the router. But only via a cabled connection. My whole reason for doing all this was to have wireless connection throughout the house. One for convenience. And two, so I would not have to worry everytime mother stepped over a cable.

When I purchased the WGT624, I'd also bought the 108 Mbps Wirless USB 2.0 Adapter - WG111T. Supposedly, so I could have 108 Mbps speed. But that apparently only happens when the moon is full and the dodo has returned to Bali. The WG111T is an odd looking device that juts out from the side of the USB port and is easily bumped.

Well my troubles with the previous equipment was a moon cast shadow compared to the problems with the WG111T. No matter what I would do, it would not work. The troubleshooting files said to uninstall the software and re-install. One wee catch, it would not uninstall. The laptop froze everytime I tried it. I tried through the disc utilities; I tried through the control panel remove programs; I tried through control panel system device manager. No luck. (My uneducated quess is that a file or files becamse corrupted at some point.)

This afternoon, I gave up and went in search of a replacement. I pointed my dirty little car in the direction of Best Buy and came away with the 108 Mbps Wirless PC Card - WG511T. The WG511T appears to be much sturdier than the USB adapter. And it fits snugly into the laptop card slot. It took about ten minutes to set it up.

One of the many things I noticed in this process, is that the steps mentioned in the documentation may or may not happen in that order.

I also figured out that the settings for the wireless PC card and the wireless settings for the rounter must match exactly. There are any number of settings here, especially those involving security, that are not clearly explained.

There's a park nearby, but when I first moved back, it was closed. Several weeks ago, I thought I'd give it another try. And it has turned out to be a wonderful place. There are plenty of trees, and believe it or not, some of the trees have been labelled. I even noticed a shag bark hickory. There's a lake with ducks and geese. And when I crossed one of the bridges I noticed two turtles sunning on a log.

Park paths I've encountered in the past have been marked by switchbacks and intricate curves, but this path makes a leisurely curve out and back.

PAX!