Optus drops
For the past week the Optusnet cable connection has been intermittently dropping out at the most inopportune times, like when I’m submitting a database search or an article request.
Finally had enough and called Optus tech support (twice, mind you), only to be told (twice) that the problem was on my computers and that I may have spyware. Pfft. They nonetheless detected “anomalies” on the network, but there was no problem with my nearest neighbour who was also using Optus cable, so they figured the problem must be on my end. They told me to “monitor” the situation and to call if it got “really bad”, and were “sorry [they] couldn’t do anything more”. Right.
But then a dig through the cable modem log file (192.168.100.1) came up with many entries marked Critical, Warning, Error, and even one Emergency.
************ 5-Warning D520.2 DHCP Attempt# 9 BkOff: 5s Tot DSC:9 OFF:3 REQ:3 ACK:1
************ 3-Critical D1.0 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
************ 5-Warning D520.2 DHCP Attempt# 7 BkOff:11s Tot DSC:7 OFF:2 REQ:2 ACK:0
************ 3-Critical D2.0 DHCP FAILED - Request sent, No response
My problem? Yeah, right.
So anyway, it’s working now obviously since I’m posting. No problems so far tonight. I changed the MTU setting on the Linksys WRT54G v5.0 router to manual 1450 instead of the automatic 1500 after Googling the problem. Some users found 1450 works better; the recommended range is between 1200 and 1500 for cable. Don’t know if it’s because of the new MTU setting or because Optus finally fixed itself up.