I Am The Harbinger Of Cable Modem Death

Well, yesterday I got my tax refund and I told the wife, " I AM GETTING A LAPTOP COMPUTER!!!(that is if it's ok with you, hon..)" Ok..so, I'm not suicidal.

Well, I went out and bought a Gateway laptop, that is just balls out fast, and a wireless router at Best Buy (i.e. Guy Heaven) and was so excited about my new purchase, I couldn't wait to get it home and set it up. I'm like a kids at Christmas when it comes to new electronics.

Ok, so I get home and immediately start to rewire my desktop to make room for the wireless router and tidy up a bit. Well, I disconnect everything, including my coax line from the wall. That was my error....my CRITICAL error. Because my cable modem never worked after that. When I reattached my coax to the modem, I did not get a solid green light telling me that my cable was communicating with the modem.

It flashed in spite of me. Mocking me. Blinking. Taunting me.

So, I unplugged everything between the computer and the modem and the cable. Then I waited for it to reset. I still got the blinking light. So, I repeated the process. This time I sacrifices a small furry animal to the gods of computing to incure their blessings. The gods were not pleased. They frowned upon my feeble attempts of sacrific. Their denial forced me to take drastic measures.

I had to call tech support. I'd have rather eaten shards of broken glass. But I buckled..

And guess what. Tech support was of no help whatsoever. I know. You're stunned also. I kept at it though. I did everything they said to do. Unplug. Turn off. Wait. Reboot. Until I had called four times and was very angry. My afternoon turned into having a service call for Monday. MONDAY. I CAN'T go without the internet until Monday....ARE YOU NUTS??

So, I decided to eliminate by process. I first moved my cable modem to a different cable line and discovered the same problem with the flashing cable light. I went to a third hookup and same problem.

Well, it turns out that I must have fried my cable modem when I disconnected the coax the first time. I probably didn't ground myself properly and possibly fried the modem.

So, at 9:00p.m. last night, I headed to Best Buy again and bought a new cable modem.

This time, hooking it up, I made sure I grounded myself properly.

I understand that when it comes to cable modems, I'm Charles Manson.