I am happy again. I now have a working wireless internet connection in my office. The last few days while my router was out have been mean days. I couldn't feed my addictions and it made me an evil person.
I spent my time seething about "Why Jeanne should buy the new router." and "Why I should be the one with an internet connection today.". So when I put a new router in I also installed a wireless NIC in my desktop.
I picked the Belkin Wireless Pre-N because I was so impressed by their router and because the Linksys I tried didn't have enough range to work in my office.
Belkin uses their PCMIA wireless card in a PCI motherboard for desktops. It a neat arrangement and works like a charm if you don't make the mistake I made. I inserted the PCMIA card in what seemed like the obvious way with the writing up and nothing happened. My PC didn't see anything.
So at 9 PM last night I called Belkin Customer Support. Amazingly, no wait and I got immediately to a support tech who I could understand. We walked thorough the problem. I am sure he and the others in the office had a pretty good chuckle when he told me to flip the PCMIA Card over and try inserting it that way. From there on everything was automatic. The PC saw the card and installed the software. I had a nice strong signal and life was good again.
An evil mind is it's own reward. I noticed that my desktop picks up good signals from 2 wireless routers, mine and my neighbors. So the next time my router goes out and Jeanne's TIVO and XBox 360 have no connection. I'll just connect to the neighbor's LAN.
I don't think I'll be buying the next Router …. Smile.
Filed under: Rant, Uncategorized
Wanna bet?