Tuesday, June 29, 2010

...And The Fun Never Ends!

Comcast is gone! They are out of my house as my internet provider as soon as I can get someone else to install a connection! I am sitting at the Belmar public library (Jefferson County Public Library System) to get all this posted. I spent four hours at a coffee shop this morning to get through my email.

The problem? No clue!

The technician was out last night for two hours. At least he didn’t try to blame it on the wireless router that I didn't have hooked into my PC when it failed! But try as he might, he could get my PC to see the modem but not the internet.

It didn't impress me in the least that he could get his PC to connect. But that did me no good as it was MY PC that I needed to work. After two hours, he gave up and suggested that I try rebooting my PC repeatedly until it started working.

I have no idea how this would help when, as I explained to him, my PC has worked fine on the networks it has been connected to (both hardwired and wirelessly) over the past month as I traveled around the country and the problem only happens when I attempt to connect to the internet at home.

So, there it is. Once again, Comcast has been out and has been unable to help me.

I guess I will be spending a lot of time at the public library and in coffee shops this week. I hope my new internet is installed quickly!

Wherever you are today, I hope that your day is going well!

Don Bergquist – June 29, 2010 – Lakewood, Colorado, USA

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi - I had a troubleshooting job once where we ran into problems similar to what you seem to have with Comcast. I came to the conclusion that maybe "some event" might have happened when connected with your provider (Comcast) that somehow "poisoned" your computer to not work with Comcast. Also, the computer not seeing the Internet when it can see your provider's connection could be a firewall problem - maybe the firewall only blocks Internet with Comcast and not the other connections you have made. Changes to a firewall can occur when a person is online and they are not aware of it (some firewalls update while you are connected to the Internet and might add things you might not want). But if that were the case it should view Comcast as friendly and should block all of the others, rather than the reverse.

If you still have Comcast you might want to try to install another OS in another partition of your computer as a temporary solution. I have an old XP computer that can't make an Internet connection but the Linux Ubuntu 10.4 OS I installed last week in another partition of the computer can make a connection. The browser is Firefox but it isn't really all that bad. I'm using it right now.

What you are experiencing is one of the most frustrating computer problems that a person can experience. If it is any comfort - you are not alone. That sort of thing happens to other people too.

Anonymous Reader

Anonymous said...

Hi - I had a troubleshooting job once where we ran into problems similar to what you seem to have with Comcast. I came to the conclusion that maybe "some event" might have happened when connected with your provider (Comcast) that somehow "poisoned" your computer to not work with Comcast. Also, the computer not seeing the Internet when it can see your provider's connection could be a firewall problem - maybe the firewall only blocks Internet with Comcast and not the other connections you have made. Changes to a firewall can occur when a person is online and they are not aware of it (some firewalls update while you are connected to the Internet and might add things you might not want). But if that were the case it should view Comcast as friendly and should block all of the others, rather than the reverse.

If you still have Comcast you might want to try to install another OS in another partition of your computer as a temporary solution. I have an old XP computer that can't make an Internet connection but the Linux Ubuntu 10.4 OS I installed last week in another partition of the computer can make a connection. The browser is Firefox but it isn't really all that bad. I'm using it right now.

What you are experiencing is one of the most frustrating computer problems that a person can experience. If it is any comfort - you are not alone. That sort of thing happens to other people too.

Anonymous Reader

Unknown said...

Dear Anonymous Reader,

Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog. Your comments are helpful, and outline a lot of the steps I have taken. I thought of the firewall thing too... that is why I turned-off all internet security as one of the troubleshooting steps while Comcast was out.

It did no good. So I have decided to just change carriers. It is a cost savings. I will get internet service for a fraction of what I have been paying with Comcast for a few months and then Qwest will inevitably tick me off doing something stupid and I will be looking for another internet supplier.

Isn't it just the way of the world.

Thanks again for your comments and have a great day!

Don