Had a customer who would have her internet access just stop working unexpectedly.

When I was first called, I tracked it down to just a lost adsl password… call bigpond, get the password reset, and then it worked fine (or so I thought).

About a week later it seemed to happen again… this time, the adsl modem settings seemed correct (no one had gone into the speedtouch 530 configuration settings, so the password (the sequence of dots) was still there.

But when the modem was (re) started, the lights came up correctly, except for the “@” light… instead of being a solid green, it would be a solid yellow colour.

To me, that indicates that the speedtouch can detect an adsl line connection, but cannot get authorised to actually use the internet (ie wrong username or password).

So I call bigpond technical help (to ask if there is a line fault), and while waiting on hold, I decide to re-enter the password again (hey, it can’t hurt!).

Once I enter the password, the modem connects!

OK: hangup the phone… there is no line fault.

I try google, and it works… hmmm, whats going on here?

I restart the modem, and I wait a few minutes, but it just never reconnects on it own.

The speedtouch 530 configuration screen show that it is meant to save the password, and it looks like it has remembered a password, but it won’t connect (and it doesn’t indicate that it had an authentication failure either!!!) until I re-enter the password manually.

I take a new netgear modem out of the car, connect it up, and it has no problem “remembering” the password.

I guess the NVRAM in the speedtouch 530 was flaky.

The customer recalls that her hubby (who is currently away on business) would often need to do some work to “fix the internet”, but he wouldn’t believe that the modem was faulty because “then never break down”.

Well, it is rare, but modems (and RAM, CPUs, ethernet cards, etc) can break down.