[digitalwanderer]

Ok, after about 2 hours on the phone with tech support this morning they came to the conclusion that the problem was on my end but for the life of me I couldn't figure it out.

So I cheated. I tore all the DSL stuff out of Bubbles and put it in Blue and did a clean, minimal install...and it WORKED! I even got winproxy, (technically "WinProxy 1.4 update 3", more on that in a moment.), set-up and Bubbles & Boomer are sharing the connection no problem!

One LITTLE thing...I can't game online anymore. Bubbles can't see the connection when I'm in a game on her worth beans...what am I doing wrong?

I'm betting that it's 'cause I'm only using a TCP proxy and I need an IPX-thingermerbobby...but I'm a little drained from just getting it to this point and thought I'd turn to the experts for some advice.

Oh, and I AM buying a modem/router just as soon as I can get enough time to drive a mile away from here to the store to get one, and I wanted a bit-o-advice.

I have a choice 'tween two:



This linksys which I SHOULD get since it's about the most popular/best around from what I read...but it's $70 locally...or

This Siemens SpeedStream which the customer reviews are not stellar on, but it only costs $30us!

Now running out the door and blowing $30 don't seem like a bad deal if it'll fix what ails me....but I fear blowing $30 on another networking headache. Any input? (Oh, and I FEAR blowing $70 right now...me wife is having a bad day and it would send her thru the ROOF! $30 I could get away with... )

[ToshiroOC]

Dangerous as it may be to your health, I would recommend the linksys - I have a Linksys very similar but with 802.11 adeed in, and I've had nothing but fun and ease of use from it.. I even messed up a firmware upgrade and it fixed itself so I could try again! Not sure really what happened there though - I just sorta had the flash program freeze midway, then the router didn't work, I restarted the router manually, and after about a minute longer-than-normal restart, the router started blinking and I tried again and it worked...

[digitalwanderer]

..thanks. I was kind of looking for a, "I got the cheap one and it's GREAT! It DOUBLED my speed and found me all the good sites even!!!!", type-o-reply. It sounds like the linksys is a hell of a nice way to go though, and I must admit that EVERYONE I've heard from on the subject who owns one has pretty much the same attitude as yours; the linksys is the best and a dream to use. (<---frownie only 'cause I know I won't be able to get a linksys for awhile.) Heck, my network right now is based off the cheapy 10/100 linksys home networking kit with 4-port hub and it has done me nothing but proper since getting it...I REALLY like linksys!

[ToshiroOC]

Ya, I sorta figured that... I'll edit this in a second, a friend is telling me right now about a second option, though I'm not too sure about it (I'll find a couple of links for it...)

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...tby=14&order=1

http://www.freddysdeals.com/3G300-106400.html

Are two stores with it, and the only review that I could find:

http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/r...terreview.html

This one is still $50... but better than $70, no?

[digitalwanderer]

....there's this over-powering urge in me right now to just "get a win" out of me day today; and the idea of the immediacy of running out the door, plunking actual folding money down on a counter, and running home and fixing one of the biggest annoyances to me has got this overwhelming, "Dig's gonna get the $30 cheapy anyways", kind-o-feel going.

I've already got the cash clearance from the wife on it, (I knew that one would be easy...methinks she's feeling a tad guilty about sleeping all day even though she shouldn't. Yeah, I'm a sleaze-ball when it comes to me IT budget tactics. ), but I had to wake her up to get her to pay attention enough to understand what I was saying. She's sitting in the living room with the kids trying hard to pretend not to be asleep which I find hilarious, since I've trained my daughter that the funniest thing in the world is catching Mommy asleep and screaming, "WAKE UP MOMMY!!!!", at the top of her lungs.

Ever few minutes there's a "WAKEUPMOMMY!!!!! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Tickew-uuuuuuuu!!!" and a grunt as me daughter launches herself on me wife to tickle-attack her coming from me living room as I type this and it's absolutely cracking me up. In all these annoyances the kids still never fail to bring me a grin, but I sort of wish they knew networking right now.

If the moon and stars and bathtime/bedtime all converge just right, I MIGHT be able to squeeze in a quick trip to CC tonight. If so, I'll probably do something stupid and just get the cheapy for now...but I always say that before going into a store and still never know what I'll come home with.

(Can you tell I'm on me 6th pot of coffee today? I REALLY think I'm gonna have to lay off the joe.... :tremble-tremble: )

[digitalwanderer]

So I get the kids in bed and race to CC to pick up a $30 fix. It's there, get it, get home, install, set-up; CAN'T LOCATE SERVER!

"Thunk-thunk-thunk!", said me forhead and the desk in perfect unison.

So I call their tech support with dread and they inform me to troubleshoot me problem I have to pull me shiny new router and connect the modem to the NIC. Fine, I do it rather than argue. Un-install/re-install and make a new connection, it does the expected and can't connect to a server.

(The punchline is coming, it's good too.)

So she tells me to go ahead and try hooking up my router again, at which point something in me head went "pop" and I explained to her that I had it set-up before and knew EXACTLY what it was gonna tell me....in fact I'd copied and pasted the error log from it since it was the most detailed I had seen so far. It said it was having time-out errors connecting to the server and it couldn't find any PPPoE servers.

(Oooooh! Here it comes...)

And she says, "Did you say it's having trouble connecting to our servers? Well you know we've been having a LOT of problems with our servers in your area for the last couple of days, a whole lot of people haven't been able to connect and the ones who have can only get thru slowly. Didn't they tell you that on Thursday when you first called with this problem?".

I very calmly replied, "Why no, no they didn't. In fact I did ask them that several times and they told me there was nothing wrong with the servers and it must be a problem on my end."

<muted laughter> "Oh no sir!", she said calling me 'sir' for about the 1,000th time in a twenty minute phone call (do they get extra points for saying it a certain number of times a minute or something?), "The servers have been having awful times all weekend long sir. They really should have told you that sir, if your router isn't connecting like that it must be a problem on our end."


THUNK-THUNK-THUNK


So there ain't a damned thing wrong with my end of it, their servers are overloaded/down. In a way it makes me happy, it explains things and me geekworld makes sense again. (I think it was driving me so nuts because I knew I had it set up right and it SHOULD have worked.)

I thanked the nice tech lady most sincerly and enthusiastically, I really was greatful just to get the bloody truth finally!

[ToshiroOC]

Its rare to get a really good tech person who doesn't see you as another problem to solve, but a person who needs help fixing something I met ONE of those in Dell tech support once - I asked to talk to his supervisor at the end of the conversation and told him that the guy was a sheer genius and was the most helpful technician I'd ever met I don't know if it did any good, but it can't hurt, can it?