My Amiga 1200 is destroying my ADSL Modem/routers! (2 of them so far) Please HELP!

[AmigaMance]

 I am against of cross-posting the same thread all over forums because i consider it anti-nettique, but this time i have to make an exception because i feel very desperate right now.

 I have an Amiga 1200 revision 2B from Escom and i'm using it every day, as my main computer. I'm accessing the internet with a dial-up modem without any problems, (like right now that i'm posting this message) but because we all now how slow this is, i decided to go ADSL about a year ago:

CASE 1:
 I bought a second-hand network card "fiber line 10M ethernet combo" not in a very good shape and a brand new ADSL modem/router "SpeadTouch 536".
 I set everything up and i started to access the internet with my new ADSL connection.
 After 10 hours of happy browsing, i started to smell like something was burning and the connection was dropped. The "ethernet" LEDs on both the card and the Modem went OFF forever... This meant that the card could not communicate with the modem. I never managed to connect again with that equipment and thus, i went back to dial-up...
 I blamed the old and crappy network card back then, but i recently opened the modem and saw that a chip near the ethernet plug was smoked-out. I googled that chip and found that it is a usual transformer but as a IC. I have no idea of what caused the damage. I don't know if it was the card or not.

CASE 2:
 A week ago, being sick of the dial-up thing, i decided to give broadband a second chance. This time i bought a "KTI PF-16i" ethernet card and a "SpeedStream 4200" ADSL modem/router. Both were brand new.
 I successfully connected to my modem/router configuration page via AWeb, using either MiamiDX, Genesis or MOSNet. After a couple of hours, while i was tweaking the settings, (entering user/pass, encapsulation mode, etc) i realised that the modem did not responded to my actions anymore!
 Unlike in the first case, there was no burning smell and the "Ethernet" LEDs remained ON. There are still ON as we speak, but i can not access the configuration page anymore. I tried to reset the modem to "factory defaults" by pressing the appropriate button, it did reset, but this didn't help. I opened the modem and couldn't see any visible sign of damage. I have no clue of what is damaged this time (network card or modem/router) but it's apparent that something is damaged...


 What the hell is going on!? Apparently, something is damaging the modem and probably the network card too. It's not a specific brand of card or modem because i tried 2 different brands of both peripherals.
 I can only assume that it's my Amiga. What sort of malfunction could it have? Where should i look? Everything else works as normal!
 Is there a known problem with the PCMCIA slot of the Rev 2B?
 Anyone else had this terrible experience? With which Amiga model?

 Am i doomed to stay on dial-up forever with my Amiga?    

[AmigaMance]

@Ruttolomeo

- bad/faulty power supplies for your routers (strange but possible)

 Impossible. Each router came with its own PSU.

- problem at DC wall plug?

 I used the same wall plug that i use for my old dial-up modem.

- simply bad luck

 It feels like a curse! :-(

have you tried to hook up your router to a pc? (or a borrowed friend's pc)

 As i said in the "Case 1" that router is fried. I can see the burned component.
 Now, about the second router, there are no visible signs of damage, but i know that it is damaged because i can no longer access its configuration page, MiamiDX DHCP server can't find IPs, etc. All of them were working ok a few hours ago!

Anyway I suggest you to open your miggy for inspection...

 Apart from being dusty, i don't see anything wrong but i'm no HW expert. I cleaned it up, but it didn't help. The damage on the ADSL equipment has already be done. :-( (twice)

[AmigaMance]

The first case would appear to be the router failing because of poor manufacture or components, this is hardly a surprise - Speedtouch modems are crap.

The second case looks like something a little stranger, but again I think it's the router. I've never heard of the brand and I don't trust network gear from people I've never heard of.

My suggestion is try buying a decent router, like a NetGear or Linksys. More money, but they are decent boxes and won't feck you about.

 What i fear is that i will end up with a 3rd damaged, expensive modem/router.

modern routers won't usually config properly through an Amiga browser because they use Java applets or extensive Javascript

 But, in both cases they worked fine, until a few hours later, in where they stopped working.

 Anyway, remember that the first modem went dead by frying. This indicates a hardware problem.

[AmigaMance]

Boudicca wrote:
Sounds to me possibly if you have an "earth" problem in your house.

Different Earths around your home can produce some really strange effects on electronics.

It is not uncommon to see a swing of VAC between earths....so it is possible that can be converted in a swing of VDC between   circuits in electronic devices.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_and_neutral

  Hi, boudicca.
 What your're saying here made me do some checks.
Half of the devices of my room are connected to a multi-plug extension cable which, in turn, is connected to the wall plug of course. When i looked to the wall plug, i saw that it's the old, 3-holes type, while the connector of the extension cable has only 2 pins plus the earth which is not a 3rd pin, but a clip in the sides of the connector.
 I'm not sure if you see what i mean, as my explanation is a little fussy, but the end conclusion is that ALL the devices connected to this multi-plug are UN-grounded/shielded!!
 Now that i think of it.. A few years ago, i notice that when i touched the tower that i use to host my HD/CD drives or the metal case of my Amiga, i was getting a minor electric shock! I got around it by connecting a cable to my tower and Amiga case to the pipe of my radiator. I didn't thought to check for a missing earth back then, although it was obvious.. I still have this cable attached and there were no electric shocks since then.

 I will definitely buy asap a multi-plug with a 3-pined plug connector, of course, _BUT_ i really wonder if the lack of ground caused the destruction of my 2 modems. What makes me wonder is that:
a) I'm using this setup for at least 10 years and i haven't got a burned electronic device/Amiga/Amiga peripheral ever...
b) Both the PSUs of the damaged modems doesn't have an earth wire! :-?

Check your earth against different places, e.g Meter between, your wall outlet (Earth pin) and a water tap etc. (only do this if you are sure what you are doing.)

 Yep, the voltage differential is near zero. It's just that i wasn't using a ground all this time.

Also there is a third ground to deal with and its the phone line its self, the phone produces another voltage swing of upto 50vac and some sensitive devices, don't like that very much and added to the swing from the AC Adapter its easy for devices to be cooked.

 Is there something i can do about this?? Phone cables in my area has only 2 wires.

To be honest I haven't seen this affected for 20 years but hey you never know.....

Its still probably just bad luck and cheap components.

 I really don't know what to think. Do you still believe it's the cheap components after reading this post?

[AmigaMance]

@Zac67

At first, I would've said this is impossible. But thinking about it, I might have a theory. It might be caused by a bad mains supply. For some reason or other your mains sockets are on largely different potentials and the current to compensate these potentials is so high that it actually burns down the hardware. Several ways to work around (though this should seriously be fixed).

- Use a multimeter to measure the voltage potential between the used wall sockets. If you don't know how to do it, ask an electrician.
- Use the very same wall socket to power your Amiga and the router.

 As you can read in the above post, i'm using the same wall socket, basically.

- Use a cheap hub/switch to protect expensive equipment.
- Use a UTP network cable, the shield of STP cables runs the compensation current.

 Ok about the hub/switch. How can i see if i'm using a UTP or STP ethernet cable? i'm not familiar with these things.

BTW: Have you checked/swapped the A1200 PSU? As a constant, it might also be the problem.

 Yes. First modem was burned while using a A500 PSU, the second modem with a pc PSU.

-----

@CLS2086

But tell us if you did the PCMCIA reset trick on the motherboard ?

 The software one.

Did you check the other phone component on your line ? did you change the ADSL filter (I had 2 deficients)? have you check them ? Did you have an old condensator at the end of phone line (only if you have multiple wall phone plug) ?

 Could any of these things leads to 2 damaged modems?... I think not! If you suspect that i can't connect to the internet due to problems with the phone line, i can't even access the configuration page of my router. Phone line is irrelevant in this case.

Did you make circle with your ethernet cable ?

 No.

Look if you have around your house or flat :
- a military base/police/TV/train station or line

 Afaik, no.

- an old or not so well grounded equipement (such as a microwave, " frigidaire ", washing machine, ...)

 Yes. In fact, no grounded equipment. Check my reply to Budicca.

[AmigaMance]

@Framiga

thats are "schuko" type plugs.

 Right.

Anyway check with a mutimeter (continuity check) if that clips AND the center hole of the 3 holes plug, are phisically connected.

 I just did and.. oh-oh, they are physically connected! All plugs in the house are like that. I suppose that this is a bad thing and it means that i don't have a real earth, right? :-?


---------


@Floid

1. Is the smoked transformer IC on the phone side or the ethernet side? If it's on the phone side, you can rule out ethernet mysteries.

 Good thinking. The smoked IC is on the ethernet side. No doubts at all. That's why i suspected that there is something wrong with my Amiga from the beginning.
 In fact, that modem can still detect the DSL line, but not  the ethernet connection.

2. Certain Speedstream modems, as I found out the hard way, can get into an inexplicable kiss-of-death scenario with certain systems. This happened to me with a 5360 when I happened to hook up a Netgear WGR614 in place of another router. However, in my case, the modem could be observed rebooting every minute or so. (Presumably some relatively common network activity looks like a firmware flash command to the modem; there's a nearly forgotten Windows utility to reflash the 5360, YMMV with a different model. I never tried it since I didn't have a Windows machine around.)

 That's possible, but i never observed this behavior while i was still able to communicate with it. My bet is that the Speedstream got damaged, just like the SpeedTouch.

The coincidence is pretty inauspicious, but it could have just been one instance of defective hardware followed by the strange Speedstream bug. I'd sacrifice one more modem to it, of more recent manufacture, to find out.

 I'm on it. It's not that i have other alternatives. :-(
I wish i could pin-point what is the problem first.

Oh, and re grounding/earthing: The 1200 has a ground, but those modems all run off wall-warts, and unless your locale has significantly different regulations, the wall-warts are two-pin devices.

 That's right. Both modems came with two-pinned "wall-warts".

You could have dirty power or the 1200's supply might be providing dirty DC to the PCMCIA slot, but that strikes me as less-likely if the Speedstream problem is what I think it is.

 It's not the PSU. Like i said earlier the first modem got burned while i was using a A500 PSU, and now the second one stopped working while using a pc PSU.

If you're really paranoid about the NIC possibly taking out the modem, I suppose you could put a $10 hub between the modem and computer. Unless the hub fails and takes something out with it.

 A hub? I will have a look at hubs. Because from what i have observed so far, this is what is happening. The NIC or the Amiga is damaging the ethernet circuit of the modem.

[AmigaMance]

Zac67 wrote:
STP cables have a metal shield contact surrounding the plug, UTP are clear plastic plugs. AFAIK the contacts themselves are potential free.

 EDIT: Ok. I just checked the ethernet cables of both modems and they are UTP.

[AmigaMance]

Hi.
 I bought a new Level One modem/router, a power/ethernet/phone line surge protector and i have replaced my 2B motherboard with my spare 1.D4 one just in case there was something wrong with it. But the most important factor is that my devices are properly grounded now.
 I can't say for sure if it's the surge protector, the 1.D4 motherboard or the new modem, (less likely) but i belive it's the proper ground that keeps my modem in good health. It seems that Boudicca gave me a good hint!
 I want to thank him and everyone in this thread who gave me feedback on this problem. Thank you people. :-)

 Last but not least, i would like to give many thanks to the cnet team and especially to the maintainer of the cnet.device's website for his big patience and his EXTENSIVE technical support that he provided me on how to overcome this problem! :-)