So, the website's been a bit dodgy the past few days, bouncing up and down, because one of my DSL connections has been really flaky. Works sometimes, other times no joy. Rebooting the DSL modem sometimes fixed it, and other times, well, it didn't. This all started after the big thunderstorms that rolled through, so naturally I blamed it on the storms--either something got wet, or lightning toasted some component somewhere. Not My Problem.
Right.
Turns out that my hack job in wiring this all up initially (it's an old house, the wiring's lousy, and when they ran new cabling they cheated and ran the two phone lines over the two pairs in the one cable coming in. And backwards at that--the primary line's on the black/yellow pair, and the DSL (not the broken one, the other DSL line. No, don't ask, it's too geeky for words) on the red/green pair. Because the red/green were the original primary pair except the phone company screwed up with the original line and when they ran the second voice line it became the first and, well, it's a mess. And confusing. Anyway, the wiring where the line comes into the house is an absolute mess, with bare wires and junction boxes dangling all over the place.
That turned out to be the ultimate cause of the problem. One of the cats dislodged a precarious wire and, well, it was only partially connected. And last night it finally got bumped off all the way.
Now if I'd only done the sensible thing and looked at the wires the first time this happened...
Posted by Dan at August 10, 2002 04:22 AM