I picked up a combo DSL modem/wireless router yesterday at Canada Computers, and I actually paid by credit card! Why would I do such a thing? well because it was only $20 so the cash discount was only 40¢. The device was so cheap because it was refurbished, but it seemed to look alright; at least it wasn’t slimy or dusty.

When I opened the box, the only things that were in it were the modem itself and the power adapter. No manuals, instructions, CDs, or cables! Fortunately, I knew what I was doing. So I plugged the power in, and plugged an ethernet cable to my computer. The DHCP was working so I received an IP (192.168.1.65). Who starts their IPs at x.x.x.65 by default?? I decided to load up the admin tool and “fix” this problem, of course I had to go there anyways to “set things up”. So I tried 192.168.1.1, hmm nothing there. How about 192.168.1.60? Nope. I tried a few other random addresses before looking up my gateway. 192.168.1.254; who puts the admin server on the last IP in the range?? But at least now I was in the admin tool and able to change things back to normal.

The next dumb problem I encountered was to login to the admin console. Because there were no instructions, I had no idea what the password was. There was a handy “I forgot my password” link on the page though, so I clicked it and the hint was “my husband”. It was then that I realized that when the device was refurbished, they didn’t bother reseting the software on it! The admin interface kept a record of previous devices connected to it, so I saw that a computer by the name of jamesandbobbi used to be connected. I tried james but that didn’t work. This was getting retarded, so I looked for a master reset; and wouldn’t you know it, there was one on the box. Why couldn’t they have pressed this button before packing the modem?

After that, things went smoothly. I changed the defaults back to more common values, and setup the wireless security. For a cheap device, it has most of the important features, including port forwarding and basic firewall. The only thing that’s missing is the ability to restrict access based on MAC addresses, but WPA should be enough.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: dumb, geeky