I'm about ready to throw out my wireless router and get rid of Verizon DSL.

Wednesday night I came home late, and Emily informed me that we had no Internet. I was too tired to deal with it, so I called Verizon Thursday morning.

We established that their modem was working fine, and it was a Netgear problem. So, I called Netgear.

They quickly established that it was a DSL modem problem, so I called Verizon back.

Netgear told me that we needed to switch the modem to bridge mode and disable DHCP service. So, the Verizon guy, Al, walked me through how to do that. Then, Al helped me try to reconfigure the router for these settings, and I was supposed to be good to go.

But, we're not. The Internet is slower than slow, and some pages refuse to load at all. I've been able to check hotmail once since all of these changes. I am frustrated and don't know where to turn or what else to try. It was fine for three months as it was, and now the connection is just weird.

Anyone have any suggestions or things I could try? I don't want to have to call Verizon or Netgear again, because they just send me to the other.

We established that their modem was working fine, and it was a Netgear problem.

Did they have you connect to just the dsl modem (bypass the Netgear wifi) with one machine? Many times the so called techs at these centers are just following specific tests.

As far as the router is concerned, I'm assuming they had you go through the usual "turn everything off" then start up the DSL modem, wait for it to be fully up, then turn on the router?.

Also, I find that usng DHCP on the router seems to work better than depending on the DHCP on the DSL box. Your DSL may vary.

It seems that they should not have had to change your settings if it was working before. Make sure the phone lines are securely in place, and that no one has swapped lines or put phones somewhere without a filter dongle, if Verison requires them.

Most of this I'm hoping has been tried, but it's best to ask than to assume when troubleshooting.

Did they have you connect to just the dsl modem (bypass the Netgear wifi) with one machine?

Yes.

As far as the router is concerned, I'm assuming they had you go through the usual "turn everything off" then start up the DSL modem, wait for it to be fully up, then turn on the router?.

Yes. I'v done this three or four times.

It seems that they should not have had to change your settings if it was working before.

I know. But, it wasn't working at all, and I guess this is at least better than that.

Make sure the phone lines are securely in place, and that no one has swapped lines or put phones somewhere without a filter dongle, if Verison requires them.

Checked.

Make sure the phone lines are securely in place, and that no one has swapped lines or put phones somewhere without a filter dongle, if Verison requires them.

You're correct, but thank you.

Sorry about your DSL, vw. My experience with Verizon DSL is that they're a bunch of incompetent morons. (My eventual solution was to switch to Earthlink's cable internet service, which has been mostly flawless.)

I just purchased an ergonomic keyboard, and I'm wondering if there's any way to tell OSX that I want to use the Ctrl key instead of the now-nonexistant Command key? Right now, it thinks the Command key is the Windows logo key, which is better positioned than the Command key on the Mac keyboard, but still not ideal.

[eta: Found it! I lurve my keyboard now.]

vw, I pay a little extra just to belong to Speakeasy.net DSL simply because their customer service is so excellent. Of phone, gas/electric, cellphone and other utilities, Speakeasy is by far the best customer experience I have. It's not that you'll *never* get the answer that it's Covad's fault or a problem with your router. But they don't give that answer as a matter of course. They actually listen to you, they don't have attitude, they're thorough...they totally rock.

[link]

VW, did anyone have you do a "hard" reset on the netgear router?

VW, did anyone have you do a "hard" reset on the netgear router?

Um...I don't think so.

Many routers are designed so that if they are somehow hopelessly scrambled, then you can reset them with a pin or a pencil that fits a small recessed button. (Like macs used to have paper clip buttons for ejecting a floppy)

Here's how to do a reset: [link]

And The step by step instructions that netgear has for troubleshooting an Internet connection: [link]

See how far you get trying a hard reset, then startng from scratch. I've seen routers pronounced "dead" by tech support suddenly work.

Also, make sure the correct power adapter is plugged into the correct unit. I had a friend who had lousy Wifi, and it turned out he had accidently plugged the AC adapter for his speakers (26 volts) into his router (12 volts). I was amazed it still worked at all.

Unrelated iBook stuff, in handy bullet-point format:

• I just discovered that the CD/DVD drive in my iBook has topped working. When I stick a CD in it, nothing happens. I don't hear anything (such as the drive spinning up or the read/write head moving) and no application sees anything in the drive. So, I'm guessing the drive probably needs to be replaced; is there anything else that could be causing the problem that I can check?

• The other day (eta: after the optical drive failed) I spilled part of a glass of water into my iBook (I don't think that much water got into it). I didn't notice at first. The screensaver had turned the screen off (but it was not asleep, as it's set to never sleep) and it wouldn't come back on. Once I noticed the water, I unplugged the power cable and took the battery out. Then I flipped the keyboard off and set the iBook upside-down for a day. Today, it seems to be working fine. I'm guessing I dodged a bullet, but is there anything I should be looking out for?

• My friend Miriam is having problems with her G4 iBook. The trackpad suddenly stopped working. I think it started working again for a bit, then failed for good. (Rebooting doesn't help.) Currently she's using a USB mouse, which works fine. Anyone have any ideas?