Power loss
Yesterday morning, high winds caused a power outage on my street. This somehow managed to totally reset my Westell 7500 DSL modem and wireless router. The official install process failed to work, just as it has never worked, so I had to call tech support. Since I ended up listening to about 15 minutes of pre-recorded advice that was completely irrelevant before getting to wait on hold for the helpful technician who actually called me back when my call got disconnected (Verizon Wireless’s great network in action!), I will document the repair process here in case this happens again.
Note, at any point, you can reset the modem back to the original state by poking the little reset button on the back with a paperclip.
- First, turn the modem upside-down and note the serial number and WEP key. The serial number is the default SSID, and the WEP key is just that.
- Connect to the wireless network, or connect your computer to the router with an Ethernet cable.
- Visit this URL: http://192.168.1.1/verizon/redirect.htm
- Click the ‘DISABLE’ button. You will eventually be asked for a password. The username is ‘admin’ and the password is ‘password’.
- The next screen will ask you to change your username and password. Change it to something besides the default. At this point, you should be able to connect to the Internet.
- Go into Wireless Settings and twiddle the settings how you want. Most likely everything you need is under Basic Security Settings.
- You will likely need to double check your firewall settings as well.
I hope that helps anyone in my situation. Naturally, if you need this advice, you probably can’t get on the Internet anyway.
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Originally published at The Hydrogen Project. You can comment here or there.