Cancel the S.O.S.

    I’m still not sure what the problem was: my cable modem would start resetting as soon as I turned my computer on, as if there was some problem with the power. It would constantly reset itself even if I moved the plug to a different line, as if, like Greg said, my new graphics card loaner was causing interference. Even with the computer off and unplugged, late at night or early in the morning, the cable modem would continue to reset itself and when it actually configured it would only maintain connection for a few minutes — meaning, it would work fine until I might try to use it.
    But, around Friday night it was able to find and maintain a connection…and it’s been working fine ever since. I’ve been able to keep track of my mail and check out my websites without a hitch. I never did figure out what the problem was, but whatever it was it’s worked itself out.
    I recently did a clean install of XP back onto my old Dell and was at last able to download the 30 to 60 MBs of critical updates and patches. I also put Linux (Red Hat 9) on my old Dell, for the heck of it; but I can’t go online with that anyway, since there are no 802.11g drivers yet. In fact, I’ve had bad luck with Linux. I originally couldn’t install it on my new computer since it couldn’t recognize the drives on my GigaRAID. …But that’s another entry perhaps.