Not my weekend for computer issues, so far.
- My Mac mini has been experiencing some weird display problems — the ViewSonic LCD flat panel I have would randomly lose the display and not be able to get it back again. At first, I thought it was related to the KVM switch (allows you to share a single set of keyboard, video display, and mouse with multiple computers; many machines can be picky with lower-end KVM switches), but I kept having the same problem with a direct connection. The problem appears to be heat-related and seems to be centered in the DVI-to-VGA converter the Mac ships with (it only has DVI output but comes with a converter so it works with regular monitors). Luckily, my display accepts DVI input, so a trip to the office later, I have the ViewSonic and the Mac talking directly over the DVI cable. So far, so good, and I not only got some necessary server upgrades done at work, but we snuck in a trip to Costco as well…
- …only to find the DSL line had been down for about an hour when we got home. I’ve been having some ongoing troubles that the upgrade to 3.0Mbps was supposed to solve. Indeed, I no longer have the packet loss and latency issues that I’d been seeing, but my DSL modem has been losing synch with the DSLAM (the equipment at the telephone central office) for ever-increasing amounts of time. My ISP has been good about tracking it down and got Verizon to send out a technician earlier this week. This particular technician, Bob, has been here before and he is one of the best they’ve got. We pretty quickly determined that my DSL modem was of a model with known issues (even though it’s techncially compatible with my line speed) and swapped it out for a different model, and all seemed good. Nope. Neither my modem nor my spare would re-synch the line. It’s now about an hour later and my ISP finally did something (after a reboot of my firewall) to get my connectivity back up, but I’ve got another ticket in with Verizon. I am starting to hope they once again managed to fry the DSLAM card; they went through quite a few of them on my old DSL line because a manager got it stuck in his head that my inside wiring was faulty when it really turned out to be mistaken wiring in the central office. (In point of fact, Bob tested my wiring while he was here. He’s never seen a line as clean as mine. Hah!)
We slept in late but I still feel like I need to head for bed early. Too much to do; miles to sleep before I go.
Update (Sunday 1:27AM): The DVI cable seems to be doing the trick, and we’re back online after a few stern calls to my ISP got me in touch with someone at Verizon who knows what they’re doing, who was able to research and figure out that they were doing some emergency replacements for the entire DSLAM shelf (holds a bunch of DSLAM cards; each card handles 12 lines) in my central office). So I’ve got Mac *and* Net. Life is good again.