Unable to connect to internet after a huge thunderstorm and service outage
I have this router. There recently was a huge thunderstorm which resulted in service loss for a few days. Yesterday, the Cable company called to say that the internet was fixed, but the router was unable to connect. We tried many things such as rebooting both the router and the modem, but none of the tries worked. Finally, we resorted to downgrading to an old router, and it worked fine.
We were able to connect to the router (via wifi) and print things to a printer on the network, but we are unable to access the internet with it.
Is it broken or is it fixable?
81 Answer
Look in your manual (acrobat file on the CD that came with the router) and look up how to a factory reset. The reset will completely clear the configuration memory in the router and set it back to factory defaults.
After doing the reset, it should present you with a setup login page. Set everything up and then hook it to your (DSL/CABLE) modem to see if it will acquire an IP address. In one of the interface menus there will be a status page that lists out the LAN (internal/WiFi) and WAN (external modem) addressing. The WAN port should get an address assigned through DHCP from your ISP.
After fully verifying all the setups, if you cannot get the WAN port to acquire a DHCP assigned address, you have to start thinking about the WAN port circuitry being fried. At that point, its device replacement time.
I've seen the configuration memory get confused by power spikes, if the (DSL/CABLE) modem did not need to be replaced, it's unlikely that a power spike on the incoming data line fried the router without frying the crunchy, tasty goodness of the electronic circuitry presented by the modem in between the great outdoors and the router inside your house.
However, power hash through the power supply can scramble router memory or cause circuit lockup, hence trying the full reset to factory defaults.
