I swear I have a technology black cloud over my house. I’ve been having issues off and on with my home network for MONTHS. It has to be more then half a year since my trouble started and this week… it got worse.

My setup is not an simple one, but it’s also not a complex one. I had a linksys setup, a cable modem, a wireless router, a VoIP box, a switch and an AirPort express. I suspected the Wireless Router, which was old as dirt, was going bad so I replaced it with a Belkin wireless router, which then lead me to think maybe the cable modem was bad too, so I replaced that as well. Things seemed okay but I’d lose my connection to the Belkin router often. I was frustrated to say the least.

We recently acquired a Slingbox as well, which requires an Ethernet cable connection, so I grabbed another Belkin Wireless router and bridged them together. And that’s when the trouble just doubled. The bridge would go down often and then finally, the other day, one of the Belkin routers, just lost it’s power. It won’t stay on. It’s dead.

I hooked up all of the old Linksys stuff (I’m such a pack rat) and that’s when the latest drama began. For some reason I could NOT get the VoIP box to work behind the old Linksys router. So I put it in front of it and then… the internet would go out every 20-30 minutes. Sigh.

Last night was spent on the phone with Pinoyboy, troubleshooting, testing and triaging my network. The final decision? New router, again.

So far so good. Next… the wireless bridge for the Slingbox. Wish me luck boys and girls!