Yesterday I started having problems with my cable internet connection. Everything would work fine for an hour or so, then the connection would just drop. Reset the wireless router, nope, reset the cable modem, aha now it works. Weird enough, but in about half an hour it dropped again. Reset the modem, came back up. When it happened a third time I called Comcast and spoke to a tech. She said there had been no troubles reported in my area, ran some ping tests on my modem and came back with a 2% packet loss (not really all that bad but still odd) and saw no issues. I told her the modem was my own, not a rental, so I would try replacing it and call back if the problem persisted.
Today I went to Best Buy and bought a Motorola SurfBoard cable modem (the original one is a LinkSys.) I plugged it in, connected it according to the directions (cable modems can be picky) and reset the wireless router. Fired up Firefox on my MacBook and got Comcast’s “Welcome” page, Kinda expected this, since this was a new modem with a new address, so I clicked the “I am a customer” link. It downloaded an installation program, which I ran. It said it was going to configure my network and then the modem. Problem was, it didn’t see the modem. Okay, I can play this game… disconnect the laptop from the router and plug it directly into the modem, reset everything, same thing. Can’t find the modem. Oookay… despite the fact that it did download a Mac OS X version of the installer, if I call Comcast and tell them I am on a Mac I’m gonna get “duuuuuuuh” as a response. Switched the cable to my Windows PC, went to Comcast’s page, got the welcome, but this time the “I am a customer” link didn’t do anything. I disabled my popup blocker, disabled ZoneAlarm, but it just refused to download the configuration program. Okay… so I called Comcast and asked them WTF?
Ended up talking to a guy named Kyle, who said the problem most likely is that they had my LinkSys on file, so it was rejecting the new Motorola modem. All he had to do was get some info on the modem, stick it in the records, and it would work in a few minutes. Funny thing that the configuration program didn’t mention that. Now that I think back, I had the same problem when I tried to hook up the LinkSys modem – their little Welcome page didn’t come up, and I had to call support for help with it, which meant I couldn’t get the special “configure it yourself” deal. Hmm. He programmed it in, reset the modem a few times, then it started working. He was nice enough to stay on the line while I disconnected it from my laptop and reconnected my mini-network, and even gave me his direct line in case the problem I had yesterday started to reoccur.
Fingers crossed.