aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

[titusnowl]

Yesterday I decided to try setting my computer up to put itself in Standby mode if I left it alone for more than 45 minutes - so it wouldn't just sit there running at full power the whole time I was at work, you know? And today, I came home early as I'd thrown up my breakfast about 1.5 hours into the day. And the computer came out of standby mode, and the internet worked fine, and I checked my email. Then I took a nap, and when I woke up about three hours later, the computer would not come out of standby mode, and when I powercycled it, the internet stopped working.

THis is really pissing me off. It's been an hour and a half now, and Justin needs to go to work in about an hour, and if I still don't have internet access by the time he leaves then I will be completely and utterly alone all night. It's bad enough that he goes to work right about the time I get home every single day, so I'm in essence completely alone all the time anyway except for when I'm in bed asleep - usually I can at least go online and have some poor shadow of human interaction, you know? But if the fucking computer doesn't start working I won't even have that, and I'm out of books to read, and we don't have even the standard ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS channels on our television because this city is fucking retarded, so I'll just have to sit by myself in a room with the lights on doing nothing by myself for six hours. Or try to sleep some more, and then wake up at 2 in the morning unable to sleep anymore, and sit up for six hours in a room with the lights off doing nothing by myself until it's time to go to work. WOuldn't that be fun?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

May I offer a WAG? Have you checked your DSL modem's settings to see how it behaves when the computer goes on standby? Does your modem connect to your computer through a USB port or an Ethernet port? If it's USB, see here (http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak421.aspx) for a possible fix.

Are you really on standby, or are you on hibernate? (Control Panel > Power Options > Hibernate -- see if the box is checked. You probably don't want to hibernate -- see Microsoft's article (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/russel_02march25.mspx) about that.) If power-cycling the PC doesn't get you online, you may need to power-cycle the modem as well.

Do you have a firewall (either hardware or software)? Do you have a router? Every step in the connection may cause problems.

Yeah, computers are a pain in the ass sometimes.

[3weasel.livejournal.com]

This is still chikkiboo. I took over Justin's computer.
We connect through a 2wire gateway. Justin's computer, obviously, is online. Mine is not, although it's firmly connected and I turned off the software firewall. The little light on my networking card is out, and I don't know why, what the light indicates, or how to change the light status.

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds like your PC is somehow not seeing the network card, which explains why you can't connect to the Internet. Try this:

Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager

Check the list of installed items and see if Network Adapters is shown.

• If it's there, click on the "+" sign by it to see if your specific card shows up. It'll probably say something to the effect of "Brand X 10/100 Ethernet Adapter."
  
• If your specific card isn't shown, go Action > Scan for Hardware Changes and see if Windows Plug & Play picks it up. Being that it was once operative, it shouldn't ask you for a driver when it reinstalls itself, but it may also get stupid and you'll have to either dig out the Windows CD or whatever driver CD is that came with your card.
  
• If the generic Network Adapters heading doesn't show up, go back to Control Panel > Add Hardware, and follow the wizard. You may also then need the driver CD.

After making sure that the computer sees the network card, go back to the Device Manager, right-click on your card (under Network Adapters) for Properties, go to the General tab and make sure that the Device usage is enabled (it's at the bottom of the window). Then go to Power Management, and see if the box for "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is checked. Mine is checked, and I've never had to mess with it, but it may be causing you problems, so try changing it to see what happens.

Well, see if that helps.

[3weasel.livejournal.com]

My network adapter is there and it says that it's working correctly. Device usage is enabled, and allow the computer to turn off this device to save power is disabled.

I'm confused and pissed.

-Jeffie

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry to hear that. You're on SBC Yahoo, and using their software to get on the Net, right? Well, their software does some weird things. (Actually, EVERY ISP's software does weird things. Buggy, insecure, and ill-behaved pieces of junk written by the marketing department. I hate them all. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Now, where was I...oh, try going around their software. Check this (http://www.obviously.com/tech_tips/Yahoo_DSL_setup_no_CD.html) out and see if that helps.

[3weasel.livejournal.com]

It won't let me connect to the gateway. "Connection refused when attempting to access 172.16.0.1."

[3weasel.livejournal.com]

NOW I feel stupid.

Somehow, despite teh fact that the computer was not moved or touched in any way between teh time that it was last online and the time that it stopped being online, the network card got loose in its connections.

The computer insisted the card was ok, but was apparently deceiving itself, because Justin just got home from work, took the card out and put it back in, and now everything seems to be working just fine.

whiskey tango foxtrot
-jeffie

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, good, because I was just about stumped, and sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out all the alternate routes that the problem could take.

Maybe this'll make you feel less stupid...one time back when I had dial-up, I lost connection all of a sudden. Huh, wonder why. Ran a bunch of hardware tests, and even posted on the Dope seeking help (the thread sank with no replies, for which I am now glad, since I would've just further embarrassed myself). Nothing worked. Well, said I, I guess this is the final kick I needed to sign up for broadband. So I order the kit, the kit comes, I crawl under the desk to disconnect the phone line from the modem and plug in the DSL cable, and I see...the phone line had already fallen out of the jack.

HUGE FOREHEAD SMACK! Occam's razor cuts again.