Well, it couldn’t get much worse. I came home to….. a broken wireless modem/router. Noooooo.

It was dead. And a new power supply on it didn’t revive it either.

So I bundled it into a bag and took it to a nearby small computer shop. Thankfully they sold a modem with the same type of power supply so tried that on the modem… dead. They tested my power supply… dead. It was plugged into a surge protected socket and everything else is okay, so we can only assume that one of these (the router or the power supply) took the other one out as well.

Not wanting to be without the internet for too long I bought a replacement there and then. I daren’t look at how much cheaper it would have been buying off of the internet. But, hey, it’s quick and hassle free – if it doesn’t work, it’s easy to take back.

Now, the router I DID have was a Netgear DG834GT, which has Super-G, giving better speed and range with compatible receivers. Such a receiver is in my daughters computer. However, Super-G only works if you’re transmitting on a particular channel – I had to change mine recently because of interference from somebody else on the same channel, so I no longer use the Super-G facility. So faced, at the computer shop, with the Super-G and standard version of this router, I plumped for the later.

I now have a Netgear DG834G – version 4, which includes ADSL2 compatibility.

It was set up REALLY easily – my router name and password is set the same but I’ve put a stronger password on the admin panel. All of this meant that everything wireless around the house burst into life without me having to change anything on them.

Naturally, something went wrong. I took the opportunity, as I was just setting it up, to flash the router firmware to the latest level. It was going through as a strip adapter that I was using (shoddy bit of kit) shorted and tripped the power off. Potentially, the router was knackered already. However, it looks like it had gone through by the time the power went off as the firmware level is correct and it’s all working fine.

One thing I did learn from this…. make a note of my ADSL username and password. I hadn’t and it was buried deep in my Gmails. Thankfully I could use my phone to access and search my mail account. But, now, it’s noted.