Cable internet went down & the reason why is .............

[Bill in SD, CA]

This is really one for the books - for me at least.

Cable went down yesterday A.M. @ 9 and couldn't get back on no matter what I did.

Modem wasn't connecting.

Disconnected power, hooked back up, cleaned connections, you name it - over and over again.

Cox guy comes out a couple of hours ago and says it was because the modem was plugged into a surge protector.

Said it has to plug into wall socket.

Plugs in and instant connection.



What the ............................?!?!


Bill

[JacobM5727]

thats odd, i have had things that wont work with a surge protector though >.<

[just_a_nobody]

Thanks for the heads up Bill, that's first time I heard about that. I guess I now have something else to try when somebody calls about that problem. Did you always have it plugged in the surge protector, and if so, did it work when you did?

I'm just curious.

[Bill in SD, CA]

I've had cable for years with no problems.

Old modem started acting up about 5 or 6 months ago and replaced it - Motorola for Motorola.

19 year old moved out and is using the old one without any problems.

Everything has been hooked up to surge protector all this time.

Bill

[DanU]

Most surge protectors are sacrifical devices. It sounds like you had a power surge (lightning maybe?) and the surge protector absorbed it. If you can open it up you might be able to see some melted/burned components.

[jrsweger]

Bill, how old is the surge suppressor that you have? I wonder if perhaps it's really not working properly (somewhere I read that surge suppressors like smoke detectors don't last forever and must be replaced periodically (I'll do some searching later to see if I can find it)). Maybe it's causing some sort of noise on the line that your modem was overly susceptible to.

/edit

Here's one: http://www.scscc.com/aug/PowerProtection.htm

[Bill in SD, CA]

No power surges here that I know of or lightning - San Diego here - lightning is a rare phenomenon.

Surge is about 8 years old.

Two computers are also powered by it so I doubt it is bad.

Bill

[jrsweger]

Lightning isn't the only thing that can cause power surges and it really doesn't need to be a large surge. Many small surges could also cause degradation. I'm not saying your device is bad, just throwing out a possibility. Your two computers also likely have better filtering in the supplies than your modem does so maybe (obviously) they aren't affected.

[electric]

i find that one hard to believe,have you tried the surge protector since


i think that cable guy needs to get out more