Here's the challenge: Due to problems to be described below, AppleCare told me to reinstall (archive & install) panther as last solution before sending in unit for repair. I'd like to find out if there's any other way of going about this....are you smarter than Applecare? I hope so...
System: eMac 1.25Ghz / direct connection to cable modem (Rogers--Canada), no router / 10.3.4
Description of Events:
Went home this weekend to to say hi to the folks. They just picked up a new eMac couple of months back after years of hounding from both my brother and I--two dedicated Mac lovers. Everything was going well until Sunday when my mom complained that the Internet didn't work. After close inspection (sys prefs), and a quick renewal of DHCP lease, I noticed that the Internet connection would stay active for roughly 30-60 seconds before disappearing.
But here's the weird thing: I still had an ip address! Sys prefs thought everything was fine--still showed connection to the cable modem--but the Internet (any forms of web connection) was essentially frozen waiting for a reboot (renewal) of DHCP lease.
1. Called ISP support. After some slight mods, still no fix. Tested cable modem on old Pentium system--worked without cutting out (5 min test). So it's not the cable modem and it's not a router cuz I don't have one. ISP suggested perhaps its a firewall issue but that makes no sense as my folks have had the Panther firewall on for months and this problem only started Sunday.
2. Called AppleCare. Explained the situation and the guy proceeded to help me reset all hardware prefs. I reset: PRAM, Open Firmware, even dragged the Library's System Preferences folder out to the desktop so that upon reboot it would recreate the folder. Nothin'...same cutting out after 45 seconds.
3. So I'm left here (after a desperate 10.3.4 combo update install which I prayed would fix everything but of course didn't) with one option as described by AppleCare: to archive and install Panther again and hope everything works out. I really don't want to do this...not because I'd lose documents (I can back those up), but rather because there's no guarantee it'll work and it would be a huge waste of time to reinstall all the apps. It's pretty annoying, you must admit--especially when my folks bought this machine they wouldn't have to do any reformatting a la Windows once they got the eMac.
*As outlined in my challenge above, I'm looking for people that can outwit AppleCare and figure out what the problem is. It's like something on the computer is telling my Mac to stop talking with cable modem but to keep the ip. Can anyone think of any conceivable software or system setting that would tell the Mac to do this. Any work arounds (continuous ip renewal?)? D'you think the archive and install would do anything? And if I send the eMac to Apple would the hard drive get erased (for instance if they replaced a defective ethernet card)?
Basically, as you can tell, I'm stumped. Any help is appreciated. I'll be around to answer further questions, if any.
Thanks guys and gals...
g.money
___
System: eMac 1.25Ghz / direct connection to cable modem (Rogers--Canada), no router / 10.3.4
Description of Events:
Went home this weekend to to say hi to the folks. They just picked up a new eMac couple of months back after years of hounding from both my brother and I--two dedicated Mac lovers. Everything was going well until Sunday when my mom complained that the Internet didn't work. After close inspection (sys prefs), and a quick renewal of DHCP lease, I noticed that the Internet connection would stay active for roughly 30-60 seconds before disappearing.
But here's the weird thing: I still had an ip address! Sys prefs thought everything was fine--still showed connection to the cable modem--but the Internet (any forms of web connection) was essentially frozen waiting for a reboot (renewal) of DHCP lease.
1. Called ISP support. After some slight mods, still no fix. Tested cable modem on old Pentium system--worked without cutting out (5 min test). So it's not the cable modem and it's not a router cuz I don't have one. ISP suggested perhaps its a firewall issue but that makes no sense as my folks have had the Panther firewall on for months and this problem only started Sunday.
2. Called AppleCare. Explained the situation and the guy proceeded to help me reset all hardware prefs. I reset: PRAM, Open Firmware, even dragged the Library's System Preferences folder out to the desktop so that upon reboot it would recreate the folder. Nothin'...same cutting out after 45 seconds.
3. So I'm left here (after a desperate 10.3.4 combo update install which I prayed would fix everything but of course didn't) with one option as described by AppleCare: to archive and install Panther again and hope everything works out. I really don't want to do this...not because I'd lose documents (I can back those up), but rather because there's no guarantee it'll work and it would be a huge waste of time to reinstall all the apps. It's pretty annoying, you must admit--especially when my folks bought this machine they wouldn't have to do any reformatting a la Windows once they got the eMac.
*As outlined in my challenge above, I'm looking for people that can outwit AppleCare and figure out what the problem is. It's like something on the computer is telling my Mac to stop talking with cable modem but to keep the ip. Can anyone think of any conceivable software or system setting that would tell the Mac to do this. Any work arounds (continuous ip renewal?)? D'you think the archive and install would do anything? And if I send the eMac to Apple would the hard drive get erased (for instance if they replaced a defective ethernet card)?
Thanks guys and gals...
g.money
___