Modem Intervention

I screwed the pooch today. But then, there was divine intervention. Apparently. And all pooches were unscrewed (de-screwed?)

The greedy suits at Comcast increased their modem rental fee from five to seven dollars per month. I thought five was too much; seven pushed me off the fence to buy a modem. After all, replacing a cable modem is simple, right? Just swap modems and call the cable company’s support line and read them the MAC ID off the new modem. Right?

Bwa-hahaha! In my house, there’s no such thing as a simple job.

I buy a Motorola SB6120. I take it home, disconnect the old modem (an SB5120), and connect the new modem. I call Comcast support and give them the MAC ID number. I restart my computer. I open a browser to Google and …

I get “Server Not Found”. I can’t get on the ‘Net. The modem is online; the Comcast techie on the phone says she can see it. The trouble is at my end: the new modem can’t link to the pc. I restart the pc again, but it still can’t get online. I thank the techie and tell her I’ll work on it.

This is just supposed to work. What can be wrong?

I’m using the CAT 5e cable that came with the new modem. Maybe it is defective. I decide to swap back to the old cable. I peer over the back of the pc; the Ethernet jack is obscured by the DVI (video) connector. After fumbling around for the RJ45 jack and not finding it, I pull out the DVI plug so I can see the jack. I plug in the Ethernet cable and plug the DVI connector back in. The monitor remains dark. I switch the monitor off and back on; it stays dark. Then I realize what has happened. When I pulled out the DVI connector, Windows assumed my primary monitor was gone and quit sending data to it. I reboot the pc but the monitor stays dark. I shut off both monitor and pc and power both back up; the monitor stays dark.

Scaroo’d.

My video card is dual-display with my TV as extended desktop. So I turn on the TV and there is my extended desktop. But that only means I have the desktop background picture on the TV. It has no program icons and no taskbar; there isn’t much I can do with it. I want to run System Restore to get my primary monitor back, but even if I can open the restore application (which I can’t) it will open on the now-dark primary monitor, so I won’t be able to see or use it.

I move the mouse cursor onto the invisible primary desktop, fishing around, clicking and dragging anything I can get hold of onto the TV screen. I don’t even know what I’m fishing for … I haven’t thought that far ahead. Suddenly a white bar appears at the bottom of my TV screen with a lot of tiny icons in it. WTF?! I find I can resize the bar. Making it larger adds more icons to it; making it smaller shows fewer icons. I can even resize it so there are no icons visible.  But what is it and why has it suddenly appeared?

What if I reboot the pc and, while it is booting, hit the key to boot into Safe Mode? If that works I might get my primary monitor back long enough to run Restore. But what key boots into Safe Mode?

I can’t access Restart with my mouse, so I force a shutdown by holding down the power button. I turn it back on and as it starts up I hit the F5 key and the F8 key. After sufficient time passes, I realize the computer isn’t going into Safe Mode so I force another shutdown (yes, while it is booting). I start it again and tap the Delete key but that does nothing. Once again, shutdown. Again, start. I try F10 and get the BIOS menu. I cursor around the BIOS menu but find nothing that will get back my primary monitor back. When I continue the bootup, the primary screen stays dark. So scaroo’d. It’s a catch-22: I can get back my desktop if I do a system restore, but to do a system restore I need to access my desktop. Have I converted my computer into an oversize brick?

Then I have my first flash of inspiration. I turn off the pc and unplug the DVI cable to my monitor, hoping Windows will send the desktop over to my TV. I restart the computer and voilà, there is my Windows desktop on my TV. Then I have my second flash of inspiration. I unplug the HDMI cable to my TV and plug in the DVI cable. I turn the pc back on and my primary monitor comes to life with the Windows desktop. The white bar with icons at the bottom of the screen is just a toolbar I accidentally created by fishing blindly on the screen with my mouse cursor – I had dragged a folder to the edge of the screen which automatically created a toolbar. I dispose of the toolbar and get my folder back. Everything looks normal; amazingly, not a single desktop icon is out of place. I open my browser and it displays my homepage. I am back online! I think it’s too much to hope for as I plug in the HDMI cable, but the extended desktop appears on my TV. Everything is working and nothing is messed up. It’s a small miracle.

And it only takes about an hour to do this simple swap of modems.