Had a rather annoying evening with VM tech support last night....

[teh_captain]

I'll give you all a bit of background.... (apologies in advance for the impending long post)

I've not long moved in with my GF's Mums house, with her, her mum & sister. They didn't have internet, but my GF's Nan (who lives right next door) has VM BB so with her permission I bought a Linksys Wireless N router in the hope that it would reach. The internet worked but didn't reach (as it turns out the houses are from the 1920's so v. thick walls) so with my GF's Mums permission I get VM 10Mb installed at home this Tuesday gone, put the N router in our house and ba da bing, PC and Xbox now work a treat.

Apparantly since taking out the N Router out from the Nan's house (modem is now plugged directly into PC like it always was before), the internet doesn't work. Worked Monday but now doesn't work. Fast forward to tonight and me trying to sort it out. Do all the usual things like rebooting modem/PC yada yada ya and still nothing. I get 'limited or no connectivity' in the taskbar. Checking IPCONFIG my IP is an 'autoconfiguration IP' of 169. something. On the modem the PC light is flashing, Cable and Power are solid green but Send/Recieve are both blank. So I ring up VM and get put through to an foreign lady who goes through a lot of things.

We've been on the phone for about half an hour to which she then comes to the conclusion that the problem is a PC one, and that I need a new NIC (because of a MAC address problem?!) and I need to ring thier PC support number (which is £1 p/m ) because they can change my MAC address of my NIC?! I've told her i've pinged 127.0.0.1 and my NIC is working but that didn't make her budge. Sigh. So I reluctantly call PC support and speak to a nice scottish chap who gets me to unplug the coax and power from the modem and then put just the power back in.

He now gets me to do IPCONFIG, my IP is now a 192.168 and default gateway is the router IP, and I also get 'LAN connected 100mbps' in the taskbar . He told me that the problem is definitely VM's end, as when I would plug the COAX back in with the VM signal it messes everything up and something needs to be done on their servers. He said he would put some notes on the account and to call them back (luckily the nan has VM phone line so 151 is free!!).

I call VM again, speak to a foreign guy who says he'll look at the account, i'm on hold for about 10 mins then I get 'the other person has cleared' . I call again and speak to someone else (foreign again, notice a pattern?) who I explain the problem to AGAIN and he says he'll have a word with tech support and give me a call back 'within half an hour' (bear in mind this is now 9.45pm). Surprisingly there was no call back so I call AGAIN and explain the problem AGAIN and after being on the phone for about 15 mins the foreign lady tells me once again that it is a PC problem and they can't do anything. At this point I really can't be ****** but she says to me get a laptop or something and then plug the network cable into it and it will work (she was adamant).

I'm going to do this later when I get home from work as my GF has a laptop and see what happens. I'm sorry for the long post but after wasting two and a half hours of my life on this I felt like posting. To all you network bods out there does this sound right to you? Am I being fobbed off or are they right in saying it's a PC problem? I'd just like to get this sorted as i'm getting it in the neck for her nan having no internet. I'm not an idiot and i'd like to think i know what i'm talking about and going through the symptoms it sounds like a VM problem but they won't admit it, although i'll see what happens tonight when I connect my GF's lappy.

Cheers all

 

[bledd]

if you're not getting anywhere, just ask to speak to another operator*


*be sure that the problem isn't your end though

removing a router is a bad idea, opens up loads of secuirty issues, she needs some sort of router tbh

 

[teh_captain]

Oh ok, although she never had a router before - the modem went straight into the PC with no hiccups?

 

[Moley]

The mistake you made was not getting the Scottish guys name and asking for him when you called back.

 

[teh_captain]

Yeah. Although after I spoke to him he said he left notes on her account so i'm sure there would be a name on the entry that he made. I (unfortunately) work on a Helpdesk so no half decent system would let you make an entry without a username/user ID etc.

 

[yashiro]

Download and burn an Ubuntu LiveCD. Boot from it and select try without installing.
It will run Linux from the CD, it does not install anything. Takes a few minutes to unpack to ram so give it time.

Once at the desktop, try browsing the internet. Let us know how you get on.

 

[Matteysan]

Have you got another PC you can try on the line?

If it turns out to be virgins fault which 99% of the time it is, Stick with it be firm & don't budge till someone sorts the problem out. I have had no end of problems with their customer service & it has always been their fault. It could be that your frequencies on the modem are completely out & it isn't syncing properly hence why no send/receive, Had this problem turned out to be the modem in the end & had it replaced after lots of moaning & groaning to them.

I've only spoke to one decent foreign call assistant at Virgin in the 15 years I've been with them his name was Emmanuel very good guy. The rest are complete numpties though. The Scottish call centre is bliss though I must say.

Make sure the modem is off for a little while before connecting the laptop, this will rule it out definitely.

 

[teh_captain]

I'm guessing your suggestion tests out whether it's a Windows problem(sorry Linux nub here)? I'm guessing if it still doesn't work then it's a problem Virgin's end or if it does it's a Windows config problem?

Cheers

 

[Swifty55]

It's always your PC's fault when it comes to VM.

Oh the fun times. :|

 

[teh_captain]

Mattey i'm going to try my GF's lappy later when I get home from work.

I've been with Telewest/Virgin for years now and their service has always usually been impeccable; if ever there was a problem they'd usually sort it post haste but last night I felt as though i'd been dealt a kipper.

I did have a hunch right at the start that the modem might have been up the spout but the first lady was very quick to shoot that down. I will make sure i'm very thorough tonight and see what happens.

 

[bledd]

the bad thing about connecting directly to the modem from your pc, is the lack of protection

you're relying JUST on the pc's firewall, whereas with a router, you have that blanket protection on all other ports

 

[~Divine~Wind~]

Long shot, if your getting the auto config 169.x.x.x address via ethernet try a quick winsock fix

You're currently connecetd direct ethernet from modem to PC yeah?

 

[mejinks]

Have you tried totally unplugging the modem from the cable and the power and leaving it for at least 20 minutes?

I had exactly the same when I tried fiddling around on our connection and the problem went away once I had done the above.