Credit to Claire Thomson.
We had some spectacular thunderstorms in Glasgow last night. Usually when there is a thunderstorm you can see it coming, experience it for 20 minutes, and then watch it leave. Last night’s was much larger – it lasted between 8pm and midnight, and covered the entire sky over Glasgow. There was both forked and sheet lightning, and some torrential rain. I was speaking to a taxi driver today who saw manhole covers being lifted above the road level by the force of the water.
Some very spectacular pictures in Flickr and on the BBC website.
Anyway, this leads me to the main topic of this post:
As we were out during the storm I had left all my kit plugged in and turned on. When we returned my broadband was down, although the ADSL router seemed to be working fine, it was just not connecting. I thought I’d leave it, maybe BT were out fixing it, so I turned off the router and the PC. This morning, still no connection, and none when I got home from work either.
So I call BT Broadband Technical Support (0845 600 7030) and I get through to a guy in India. After confirming all my details, he asked me to:
- Turn off my router
- Unplug all the cables (power, telephone, ethernet, USB)
- Wait 30 seconds
- Plug in all the cables and turn on the router
And it worked!. Immediately!
I asked the guy why this might make a difference. He said that turning the router off and unplugging all the cables discharges all the static electricity that may have built up during the thunderstorm – particularly in the cable that connects to the telephone line.
I found the engineer really helpful – and it’s not often I say that!
