An Interesting Network Problem

Last week I had a bad case of the stomach flu. Normally that is the type of illness that is done in a single day. Not the strain I had. It was with me for a good 5 days. When it came time to take my normal flight back to the office on Monday, I wasn't able. Instead I stayed at home in Utah and rested in bed. Eventually I had to get out of bed and read e-mail.

I tried to use my Linux desktop to read e-mail, but couldn't get the computer to connect to the Internet. Normally it only takes me turning it on for a connection to happen. When that wasn't sufficient, I tried to reset my cable modem, followed by power cycling the network hub. That didn't work. The rest of the computers in the house were all connecting to the Internet just fine and so I resigned myself to the fact that I needed a new networking card.

I wanted to try one more thing before heading to the store to get a new network card. I unplugged the computer and put it up on my work bench. I pulled off the cover and checked all of the connections. I was going to vacuum out the dust, but there wasn't any. I put the computer back together and booted it up. Amazingly it worked. It turns out that the real problem was that even though the computer was turned off, the motherboard was still getting power. Simply unplugging it after turning off the computer was sufficient. I must remember that the next time there is a network issue with one of my computers.