Craig Soup Web Design Blog

For ten months I’ve lived in this house, and for ten months I’ve had an internet connection that has been about as reliable as the first generation release of any Microsoft product on the market. At times I’ve been driven to the brink of insanity by a wireless connection that sometimes won’t stay alive long enough to download an MP3. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve shut down and restarted my wireless router, I would own more islands than Keanu Reeves and Marlon Brando put together (which, I believe, adds up to about two)!

And this morning was the last straw. As I logged on to start the workday, my lousy ActionTec router refused to stay connected for more than 30 seconds at a time. I restarted the router over and over, and every time I restarted it, it began working again . . . but only for a very limited time.

After an hour of this, I felt my brain swelling inside my skull like a volcano ready to pop. Over the past few months, I had tried everything that it made sense to try. I tried restarting routers, tightening cables, and I even purchased signal boosters, all to no avail.

So, since common sense didn’t seem to get me anywhere, I tried the only thing left to try. I knocked it over.

Okay, I didn’t KNOCK it over, but I did take it off the upright stand it had been sitting on and set it down on its belly. And guess what! It worked! Ever since I set it on its belly, I haven’t had a single problem, and my internet connection has been chugging along faster than ever!

And it’s all kind of strange, considering that I had a similar problem with my xBox 360. As soon as I set it in the upright position (which it was supposedly designed to be able to do), I started having major problems.

The moral of this story? If you purchase anything that comes with an upright stand, throw it away. Electronics like to lay on their bellies.