Spent 3 hours resetting my router before realizing it was a bad cable

My internet kept dropping out every 5 minutes and I was convinced someone hacked my network or my settings were messed up. I factory reset the router twice, changed the wifi password, even called my ISP and argued with them for 45 minutes. Turns out the Cat5e cable running from my modem to the router had a tiny kink in it that was causing intermittent errors. Has anyone else wasted a ton of time on a simple hardware issue like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley3851mo ago

Used to roll my eyes at people who'd say "check the cables first" before doing anything else. Thought it was lazy advice, figured most issues were software or settings. Then my buddy's kid tripped over his ethernet cable and bent the RJ45 plug just enough that it only worked when the cable was twisted at a specific angle. Spent two weekends troubleshooting that one, replaced the whole network card, reinstalled drivers, the whole nine yards. Finally gave in and swapped the cable just to rule it out, worked perfect right away. Now I keep a drawer full of spare cables, never touching the fancy stuff again.

sethhernandez1mo ago

Learned that lesson myself after my kid yanked on a HDMI cable.