Electronic Escapades, or at least, Episodes

So, when I returned home from my vacation, I was having technical difficulties in my life.  The TV in the same room, on the same but split feed, from the cable company to my computer system (wi-fi router), was having reception problems.  Grrr.

And, my computer was running distressingly slow.  I had to reboot, I had to wait, if I clicked more than one thing it did not work, you get the picture.  I even stopped going to Facebook, which was a mega-slow download before I went on vacation.  I just assumed I that while I was using the free wi-fi at the hotel, had gotten into something that slowed my computer way down.

By chance, I remembered I had a spy ware program, and I ran it.  It took for ever, and it identified about 10 files that I needed to "fix", so I clicked on "fix."  Hmmm, a little better but not great.

I called the cable company about the TV, and was advised to unplug the box and restart it after 15 seconds or so. That lasted a few hours. But, then, I unplugged the box for several hours, and that helped immensely.

For a couple of days. Today, I had the same signal interruption problem that I had before. This time, I was told to try to connect the cable directly into the box, by-passing the splitter (to the modem for the computer as well as the TV).  I did so, and  the television worked better than ever!

So, I purchased a new splitter tonight.  When I installed it, the TV was working fine.  I turned on the computer, and downloaded email and Internet stuff, then lost the Internet signal.  I rebooted the Internet by unplugging the modem and router and plugging them in, one at a time, with several minutes in between. That did not work. I disconnected and reconnected the Internet. That did not work. I remembered that the router has a reset button, so I tried that, and so far, tonight, things seem to be working as well, if not better than when I went on vacation.

I had decided that after I returned to work, I would take the laptop in to be fixed.  I can always check my emails at work, and do not have to do other online stuff I like to do.  But, I may not have to do that.

The litmus test was Facebook, which had been excruciatingly slow before I went on vacation and all this happened. While it was slow tonight, it was not so bad.  

Hopefully the new equipment and the resets have made a difference.  We shall see.