Reminder - First step, verify that power supply is working

[robert213]

Yesterday, as I switched on my surge protector/power strip, the lights on my Linksys Cable Modem stayed dark.

Since I was in a hurry, I quickly drove to the local store and purchased a new cable modem.

As I was in the process of connecting the coax and ethernet cables to my new cable modem, I took notice of the old power supply.

I found a generic multi-purpose power supply in my drawer, so I set it for 12V DC and connector polarity (inside positive, outside negative.) My old Linksys Cable Modem came to life. However, every two or three minutes, the lights would turn red and the modem would reset itself.

My guess is that the generic multi-purpose power supply must drop voltage every 2-3 minutes, so I went down in my basement and looked through a box of power supplies that I had accumulated over the years.

I found another 12V DC power supply from a broken wireless router. Now, my old Linksys Cable Modem is working perfectly once again.

Unfortunately, I opened the box of the new cable modem -- local store does not accept returns of opened merchandise --

Hopefully this post will remind someone to check power supply first.

[Tõnis]

Thank you for this reminder. It's often easy to overlook what could be a simple solution to a problem.