Sometime ya need a kick in the butt!

As I’ve mentioned, my WiFi network was aging, Hey! It was working for me most of the time…

Lately though I’d noticed that it was glitchy. Sometimes I’d have a device fall off the network and I’d have to restart everything ON the network to get the device back. It was as if the software commands to clear the routing tables we being ignored until a complete power down.

This kind of thing has been happening more often lately. Most recently, I’d not even had a cup of coffee when I was confronted in my boxers with “The printer isn’t working. I’ve turned it off & on but that didn’t help.”

OK, I say scratching my balls and trying to decide if I want to deal with this before or after my morning piss. (I chose after.) While my morning cup of coffee was brewing I pulled out the ladder so that I could power down the 5 year old Apple TimeCapsule. I tried simply restarting the TC via the Airport utility but that didn’t correct the problem.

So it was BIG RED switch time. Fine! When everything came back up, there was still a problem. So that led to the power down of everything connected to the network, wired & wireless, then BIG RED switch again.

15 minutes later the system is all normal and I finish my coffee in peace. 

But there was something that clicked in the back of my mind. Something is degrading in the network. Over the next few months, I noticed other issues that were little annoyances but not serious. Then I noticed that I had NO WiFi sitting at my next door neighbors kitchen table. Funny, I used to have full connectivity there.

That’s when it hit me that the WiFi was working in the house but that it was getting weaker. I suspect this was due to interference from newer stronger WiFi routers moving into the neighborhood but it’s possible that the WiFi transceiver in the TimeCapsule was starting to peter out. The unit seemed awfully warm when I was doing the BIG RED switch routine. 

After a little investigation and reading reviews. I decided that I’d give a seperate WiFi Router a go. In part because I didn’t want to pony up the $$ for a new Apple TimeCapsule.

So I grabbed a nice NetGear WiFi router at Staples.

What a difference!

The new technology, and the strength of the signal combine to make Netflix possible at a neighbors house that’s much further away than my next door neighbors place.

So I have a new router, and all the functionality I had before but there is no need for me to baby anything. My TimeCapsule drives are still working fine and my other network drives are happy as clams.

Had my computer not needed repair, had I not wanted to look something up at my neighbors table drinking one night, I’d have continued on ignoring the problem until it really smacked me in the face.

It’s nice to have fast reliable connections again even if its ONLY to DSL!