One for the geeks…my wasted day

Something always goes wrong when I buy computer hardware. Yesterday we bought a wireless router. Should have known it was doomed… I think I’m death to technology.

I followed instructions step by step and there I was last night, wifi all over the house, even out to the back fence. Yay! We are truly connected … not. None of those beautifully connected computers could get onto the internet. Not sure what use wifi is if it doesn’t connect you to anything.

While struggling with this and trying a variety of things, friend Donny skyped me while waiting for the World Cup to start. He was good enough to spend time and energy trying to fix things. (Thanks, Donny!) Gave some advice, which today I tried to put into practice. All morning. Nothing worked.

So this afternoon, went to the local computer store with its wonderful staff who are somewhere around one third my age and 3000 times more knowledgeable on things geeky. They tried pretty much all the things that Donny suggested and several hours worth of other stuff. Nada. Router won’t talk to Modem, even though they are both Chinese.

After total frustration, the geek came up with a solution. Let’s have wifi that you use with a cable.

Right.

So now the wifi router is routed to both modem and the computer by cables. It acts as the translator. The wifi now connects to the internet, but too bad if I ever want to disconnect the computer from the router! Actually, it’s not as bad as it sounds, as that computer is pretty well permanently on my desk because it is hooked up to a large screen and an ergonomic keyboard anyway.

Why is nothing as easy as it sounds? Now I’ve done no work today and it’s almost 8pm.


Comments

One for the geeks…my wasted day — 4 Comments

  1. Well, there are several different dialects in China!

    We have, in the past, (almost always) found that we've had to do the initial setup of the wifi router with cables connected, but we've always been able to disconnect the cables once everything's working.

    Deb

  2. Erm, I have a free router from my ISP and it connects to my desktop by cable and I can either use wifi on my laptop or connect that by cable too. Obviously I use wifi.

    Did you know wizards are death on technology, read Harry Dresden. Maybe that's yer problem.

  3. Yeah, Webfaery, that's the theory.

    Imagine Me – best way to avoid this is to get a router-modem all in one apparently. Let me know how you get on.

    That's the kind of set up I have now too, Jo, except that my "desktop" is now one of the three laptops in the house. We don't have a desktop any more.

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