DSL Woes

Today my DSL stopped abruptly. Still not clear what happened. I had thought it was an external problem with AT & T but after an hour on the phone with them and even the line connection specialists, the conclusion was that it was something on my end, possibly the modem. Strangely, while Internet access was down the modem was giving all the right signals; it was only when I was on the phone while they ran tests that it started blinking like the Bat Computer. Their advice was to go buy a new modem, since my model was really old. Indeed, the 4100 model I bought at Best Buy was 1/4 the size!

Still, it was more than simply plugging it in. First of all, my PC is not as healthy as it ought to be -- one of its fans may not be providing it with enough cooling. Then when I tried running the AT & T Installer, the CDROM and DVD drives weren't accessible. They just hung. Uh oh. After letting everything cool down and blasting out some dust, I started her up again. Sluggish drive access, but functional. It wasn't working at all with the old ethernet cable I had -- was that the issue? The new one got me most of the way there, but I needed to call tech support and get a new password. After a few reboots, the new modem and my PC were finally back in Internet bliss, and now my Macbook Pro is finally able to use my Wi-fi access point instead of someone's unprotected one. (Though thank you, random neighbor, for letting me use your bandwidth!)