Well, let me back up. I might have killed my internets. I don’t yet have conclusive proof.
So last night I’m chilling in my apartment, sitting in bed with my iBook. I spent about an hour or so watching episodes of a video podcast (a.k.a. “vidcast;” or, for the even hipper, “v-cast”) of teh pr0n, which I cannot link to now because I’m at work - but you should check out Comstock Films. At around midnight, the GDBF finishes his fervent and awesome editing of episode 1 of the North Fulton Drama Club podcast and makes his way down the hall to my place. He climbs into bed with me and the iBook, and I’m all, “Let me show you this cool shit I’ve been watching” - and as we’re getting situated so that we can both see the screen, there’s a quick flash and a loud pop, and the lamp on the bedside table goes out. We’re both stunned for a second, and then we’re like, “WTF was that?”
My first (rather alarming, but also rather stupid) thought was that the water heater had exploded or something, because it sounded like it had come from the utility closet. Rusty thought it might’ve been a power surge, but none of the other lights were out. So I thought the lightbulb had just burned out and had made a big production of it. (Going out with a bang, as they say.) While I went to get a new lightbulb, Rusty realized we were no longer connected to the internet. Now things were getting seriously worrisome.
My wireless network wasn’t appearing at all in the list of Airport networks. I investigated and saw that all my electronic doodads - cable modem, wireless router, Tivo - were, in fact, off. (No glowing green LEDs!) I flipped the circuit breaker and everything came back on.
Still no internets though. So I went through all the standard troubleshooting BS… reboot the computer; unplug the modem and router and plug them back in; turn off Airport and turn it back on; et cetera. All to no avail. By this point it was very late and we were tired, so we decided to just go to bed, even though I was stressing about my potential lack of connectivity. I guess I’ll know for sure when I go home tonight. Any of you network admin fools know anything else I should try? It would suck if I fried something.
Oh, I guess that means I should tell you what caused the flash and the pop. We finally figured it out; get a load of this shit. Since I live in a converted ice and coal factory, the whole place has that ultra-hip neo-industrial feel - e.g., the electrical outlets stick out from the cinderblock walls. Turns out my metal bedframe was making contact with an empty socket. Uh, oops. Guess I need to get one of those plastic thingies that prevent babies from sticking their fingers in sockets. (”Socket” is a funny word.)
And only I could ramble on for several paragraphs about the spark that jumped from my electrical outlet to my bed frame.
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13 Responses to "I killed my internets"
The most important thing is to determine whether the problem is local or remote.
So, you never saw the SSID from the Airport advertised? Are you able to connect a laptop directly to your cable modem via some CAT-5? What happens if you do? (You may have to use a crossover cable rather than a straight-through. Also, cable modems tend to run in RFC1483 bridging mode, so you should just get a DHCP lease with public IP interface information on your laptop when you do that.)
I guess I’m trying to say that “no connectivity” isn’t very descriptive. It could be that your cable modem is training and associating with the upstream UBR and is reachable on the MAC layer and internal transport IPs perhaps, but you are not able to use it by way of your Airport. Or it could be that everything behind your cable modem is fine, but it itself is fried. Or both.
Take the Airport out of the picture. Try plugging your laptop into the cable modem directly. All other things being equal, feel free to give me a call (ask David the Eponymous for my number, I’d rather not post it on a searchable, indexable web site. :-). I don’t know much about Apple hardware but would be happy to help, especially if I’m talking to a Mac user that does.
That said, if you did fry your cable modem, you’re more than welcome to a DOCSIS GE Surfboard I have as an ex-Charter customer, provided it will work with Comcast.
I don’t know _anything_ about cable system networking, though, mostly because it’s proprietary and closed unlike (for now) the physical build that goes into DSL.
Oh, and if plugging your laptop into the cable modem yields no conclusive results, definitely try calling Comcast, skipping past the first and second-tier n00bs, and demanding to speak to someone who can tell you if they “see” your cable modem.
With bridging devices, this is somewhat more hairy than with routed ones that use PPP encapsulation of some sort, since there’s no real concept of a “session” or a “login” at work. But I’ve noticed that most end-user cable modems seem to have static private transport IPs (10.0.0.0/8 usually), so they should be able to look it up and tell you if they can ping it or something.
But you might have to fight all the way to the top of their tech. support food chain first.
Heh… well, I didn’t put all those details in the post, because then it would just be absurdly long. Once I turned the modem and router back on, the SSID of my network did appear and I successfully connected via Airport. But no web sites would load. I didn’t try connecting directly with ethernet, or accessing the internal IP of the router (not to mention a 2nd reboot of my computer) bc it was late and I was tired.
Thanks for all the info… like I said, I’ll investigate more when I get home tonight. Seems weird that all the lights would come on and everything would appear to be functional if it was indeed fried. Or maybe not, hell if I know… now I remember why I stopped pursuing a career as a sysadmin! ;)
What exactly do you mean by “internal IP of the router”? The cable modem is likely to be bridged, so it’s not going to have an internal IP - unless they’re doing some newfangled thing I don’t know about where the cable modem actually does routing/NAT/etc. now. And if you mean the Airport (which is an access point, not so much a router), if you’re able to associate with it then I have no doubt that you’re able to ping its internal IP. :)
If the cable modem IS bridged, it basically acts like a dumb media pass-through for the Ethernet framing from upstream, and the actual public IP is hung off your Airport’s WAN interface. You can log into the Airport (presumably, if you can associate with it via 802.11) and look at its status information and see that. If you’re getting a public IP, you should have net access unless something really, really bizarre is going on.
It’s not odd at all. :-) I’ve seen plenty of fried equipment; the electrically sensitive parts that get fried are usually on the controller board, and this won’t necessarily stop the LEDs from working, or even aspects of the unit from partially working.
Happens to DSL modems all the time when they get ventilated by lightning. They are responsive, appear to work, their configuration interface is peachy, but they just won’t get sync on the line.
Like I said, call me in the evening if it still gives you problems, I don’t mind in the least.
I mean 192.168.0.1 - the router config IP. I figured I should see if I can access local IPs, to see if maybe only external ones are busted, or what.
Anyway, I’ll probably email you.
Oh, wait. I should have read your post more carefully. So you have a cable modem *and* a router *and* an Airport.
Gotcha.
[head spins]
Should I feel even vaguely guilty that my blog entry put you on the path of watching hot pr0n for an hour before you crashed?
Nah, I’ll not feel guilty for that.
:D
Are you sure the spark didn’t go from your bedframe to the socket instead?
Oh, whatever.
Amber,
I’m curious, what ended up being the problem?
Or did you just come home and find it working?
Came home, restarted my computer, and it was working.
Comstock Films will melt down the most robust system. :) Hope you got it sorted.