Disjointed Kitsch

Tim’s WinXP Dell box refused to connect to the internet this evening. He couldn’t tell me what happened exactly, but it was apparent from the modem lights that although it could see the DSL signal, and the Ethernet between the Dell and the modem was OK, the connection to his ISP, Verizon in his case, wasn’t going through.

XP saw the connection, but it turned out all WinXP saw was the connection between it an the DSL modem. The DSL modem was distributing a local 192.168.1.47 IP address and set itself up as the gateway at 192.168.1.1. I could ping the gateway (the modem) and the local machine but nothing beyond it. There was no DNS resolution at all. I tried re-installing the software from Verizon but it could never connect.

On a whim I tried connecting to the modem at 192.168.1.1 via the browser and I got a web page for setting up the modem (It’s a Westell 6100)! Looked kind of like router setup software so I started poking around with it. After getting nowhere, I “hard” reset the modem using the recessed button on the back. After I do this, the modem see the internet!! OK, back to the modem configuration page. Meanwhile Tim gets through to Verizon tech support and guess what, they want me to configure the modem by hand! Heck, a few more minutes and I might have had it figured out.

Evidently the username/password in the modem that connects Tim to Verizon had changed, been wiped, something so the Verizon folks reset it and within 10 minutes Tim was back online again.

Case Lessons:

• If after checking Windows internet settings and making sure the modem can at least see the DSL connection (just look for the green lights), check to see if the modem has built-in configuration software that can be addressed by a browser. Put the “gateway” address (probably 192.16.8.1.1) that Windows has listed into your browsers address bar
• If that works, see if you can find the status of the connection. In Tim’s case it was “down” and trying to reset the connection indicated that Tim’s username/password was invalid.
• Always call your ISPs tech support. I know it’s probably in India somewhere, but they can really walk you though this process, at least Verizon can. It may take time to get to a tech so just put the phone on speaker and catch the TV for a bit
• Try to remember what you did just “before” the problem developed. Was something new installed? What keys were pressed? What application were you in, etc.. The person that helps you will probably want to start there to help solve the issue. Tim didn’t remember since it had been 24 or so hours, but if he wrote it down I may have been able to work backwards from that point. As it is, we’ll never know how/why unless he manages to do it again (I hope not)

Another tech support case solved!