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Lightning strikes near house, now network problems.


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Lightning strikes near house, now network problems.
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torifile
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Durham, NC
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2011-05-27, 23:19

There was a pretty bad storm that came through here earlier today and we had 3 trees in our backyard struck by lightning. Luckily, they weren't felled but they were damaged so they'll have to be cut down. No visible damage to our house but there's been some strange goings on networking/electrical wise. For one, my wired network quit working. For two, my cable internet appears to be out. We're also have some strangeness in my garage door. It doesn't respond immediately to input, either to turn the lights on or open the door. My homerun box is in the garage, too.

But the bigger issue for me is that my network seems to be working but not very well. For instance, my iPhone cannot connect to my AppleTV (both connected wirelessly to the same network). But my MBA and my AppleTV do work together, again on the same network.

I've done some troubleshooting already but I need some help thinking this problem through. First, a description of my network:



The dotted lines are connections made via Cat 5e cable one end terminating in a wall jack and the other in my networking board in the homerun box. Connections are then made via standard ethernet cables. Solid lines are standard ethernet cables.

I don't know the correct terminology for all of this, so bear with me. My cable modem is connected directly to the networking board and then connected to the AEB. The AEB is then run through the networking board to the unmanaged router/switch which is connected back to the networking board with various connections for the other wired outlets in the house. There is one computer directly connected to the AEB. Does that make sense?

The problems as I see them:
- the wired computers don't see each other at all.
- the wired computers connected through the networking board* and the wireless don't see each other at all.
- wireless computers do see each other.
- AEB diagnostics state that when connected through the networking board, there's no ethernet connection on the WLAN port. When plugged directly into the cable modem, that error goes away.
- the unmanaged switch shows nothing connected, either through the networking board or through a direct ethernet connection with the AEB.

What I've done so far:
1. reset the cable modem
2. tried the cable modem connected to the wired computers through the networking board
3. connected the AEB directly to the cable modem
4. connected the AEB directly to the switch to try to rule out at least one dotted line connection
5. connected the cable modem directly to the switch
6. connected my AppleTV directly to the AEB. The AppleTV doesn't detect an ethernet cable.

Nothing has worked thus far. I do know that wireless still works. It seems my wired connections are screwed up. I also think that my switch is gone because even directly connected to the AEB, I see no lights indicating connections (usually, there are lights that show what port is connected). I'm pretty sure that it's the switch ports that aren't detecting the connections because the AEB doesn't have that "no WLAN cable connected" error when directly connected to the cable modem but the light on the switch doesn't come on when the cable modem is connected directly to it.

My suspicion is that the switch and/or the networking boards are bad. I think the ports on my AEB might be bad, too, because of troubleshooting step 6.

Next steps:
1. Connect the cable modem directly to one of the wired computers.
2. Connect the AEB directly to my OS X machine.
3. Connect the AEB directly to both a wired computer via a LAN port directly and to the cable modem via the WLAN port, cutting out any dotted line connections (avoiding the networking board and switch).
4. I've got a network cable tester that I'll pull out tomorrow to test the dotted line connections. This will tell me whether my networking board or actual CAT 5e cables running under the house are bad. It won't tell me which.
5. Test the computer directly connected to the AEB. The problem is the computer is running Windows and getting Windows to reliably give me any information about my network is hit and miss at best. :/ See step 2.

Any other ideas?

* As I was typing this up, I realized that I haven't tested the directly connected computer to my wireless computers. This has helped a little already.

If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong.
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Maciej
M AH - ch ain saw
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2011-05-27, 23:28

Is the new BMW okay? (I'm pretty smitten with that automobile.)
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torifile
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Durham, NC
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2011-05-27, 23:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maciej View Post
Is the new BMW okay? (I'm pretty smitten with that automobile.)
Yeah. And the rest of the family is fine, too. Thanks for asking. No one was home, thankfully. Our neighbors said it was the loudest thing they'd ever heard. I had left about 20 minutes before it happened. I kinda wish I had been here. It would have been really freakin' cool to see.

If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong.
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torifile
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2011-05-27, 23:43

One piece of potentially inconsistent information: my OS X machine shows an IP address of 10.0.1.8, the same it showed when the network was working. How long would it take for that IP address to be released and give itself a self-assigned IP?

If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2011-05-28, 08:05

I'm not quite sure what the network board is, but it does sound like you've lost the switch for the wired connection. Cat5e is a standard ethernet cable so I'm not sure of the difference you see in then but am curious.

IP lease is dependent on many factors. It is possible that your OS X machine has an old lease. Also, if it's connected via WiFi then your AEB is likely still giving out IP even though it doesn't have an external connection.

When switches die they don't always lose all ports. This might be the case too. If you wan't seeing activity lights then consider the device destroyed and replace it.

Do you have a battery backup on your network devices? If not you should.

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torifile
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2011-05-28, 10:07

Well the AEB is definitely fried. I swapped the AEB in my office with the one at home and my home AEB doesn't work there either and the office one does work here. Direct and wireless connections are fine. Now onto my switch. This also means that my networking board is working because I tested the AEB through it. That is a big relief because it would be the hardest to replace.

I'll keep you posted.
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torifile
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2011-05-28, 11:40

The switch is also gone. I replaced it. I think the network port on my hackintosh was also toasted. Switching it to the other network port on the computer solved it.

Looks like everything with a first degree termination from the homerun box got cooked.
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billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2011-05-28, 13:02

Not so nice...

Is your garage door not grounded?
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torifile
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2011-05-28, 14:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by billybobsky View Post
Not so nice...

Is your garage door not grounded?
Is that usual? I didn't install it myself so I don't know for sure. At the very least we know it's up to spec - the house has passed inspection by inspectors we hired to find problems before we bought it and before our 2 year warranty ran out.

If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong.
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torifile
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2011-05-28, 14:22

My daughter's room is above the garage and her baby monitor is no longer working. The clock in my son's room, also above the garage got reset - the only one in the house to do so. All of the things that have been affected have some sort of transmission/reception function. Even the clock - it's the only one we have with self-setting capability.
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Dave
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bay Area, CA
 
2011-05-28, 18:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by torifile View Post
The switch is also gone. I replaced it. I think the network port on my hackintosh was also toasted. Switching it to the other network port on the computer solved it.

Looks like everything with a first degree termination from the homerun box got cooked.
Have you considered a putting a network surge suppressor between your cable modem and your network board? Some of the home theater type surge suppressors have them built-in. The one my roommate has drops Gigabit down to 100BaseT, but as long as your router lets the different protocols co-exist, that shouldn't affect anything -- your cable modem can't even get close to saturating 100BaseT.

When I was a kid, people who did wrong were punished, restricted, and forbidden. Now, when someone does wrong, all of the rest of us are punished, restricted, and forbidden... and the one who did the wrong is counselled and "understood" and fed ice cream.
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