The wireless 3G connection we purchased, when OTE failed to complete the work order of our phone line and ADSL in six months, has developed a love-hate relationship with my Powerbook (PB).
It wasn’t the fastest thing in the world, but it was stable, reliable and absolutely better than what we had previously, which was zero. After two weeks of seamless service, it stopped working. No updates to my OS or brower, no settings were changed, no viruses. Just one day I plugged it in as normal, the 3G software froze and never worked again. I tried restarting, rebooting, deinstalling, reinstalling, etc. Nothing.
I saw on the provider’s website that the version of OSX on my laptop was actually higher than recommended, so I did a “clean and reinstall.” For anyone not knowing what that is, it means I erased my whole laptop and reinstalled everything from the beginning; it’s time consuming, inconvenient and rather stupid, all to accommodate a 3G connection.
Well, this worked, but (again) only for two weeks. When nothing else worked, I went ahead and did yet another clean and reinstall since I didn’t bother putting everything back in case the 3G bombed again. You guessed it: Worked for two weeks…bombed.
My fiancé went to the provider’s website and downloaded a new update for me, and I gave it a try. It worked for two weeks (woo hoo!) and then kaput (boo hoo!). Again, no changes, no updates, just didn’t work anymore. I tried everything I did before, blah, blah, blah. Nothing.
Customer service gave me predictable answers:
– “You need to restart.” Uh der, already did that. (Duh)
– “You should update the 3G software.” Already did that.
– “You have made some changes and that’s why it doesn’t work.” Is that a question or an accusation? Anyway, it’s not true. In fact, I keep my whole laptop dumbed down to accommodate this 3G stick.
– “You need to de-install and reinstall.” Already did that.
When I told them I erased my entire laptop and reinstalled all the software to get it working again, they told me it wasn’t necessary. Well, maybe so, but that was the only method that worked because none of their suggestions did.
So what did they suggest? That’s right. Instead of giving this to the troubleshooting team, they pushed it back onto me and told me to erase my laptop again and start from scratch. Uh hello? Why should I do that, when it’s incredibly time consuming AND only works for two weeks before I’ve got to do it all over again! No thanks. And didn’t they just get done telling me that “it wasn’t necessary?”
It was suggested I wait until the next 3G software update and see what happens, since I was “uncooperative” in not wanting to erase my entire laptop. Yeah, what a demanding b!tch I am. Well, the update came out two weeks ago, didn’t work, and the customer service guy helping me is on diakopes (vacation). Other people keep giving me the same tired suggestions and no solution.
Since the 3G no likey my PB, I use my fiancé’s PC in the back office because the 3G likey PC. While it’s certainly better than nothing, this workaround is synonymous with full-on traffic noise and full sun without AC until I’ve soaked my clothes with sweat and need to retreat to the living room or take a shower. To minimize exposure, I run between the PC and my PB in the living room with a flash drive, taking docs and text from here to there and back again. It’s annoying and a lot less productive.
To add insult to injury, the PC had an incident the other day when trojans attacked the hard drive and also had to be cleaned and reinstalled from nothing. And now for unknown reasons, the signal is ‘poor’ instead of ‘strong,’ though both are in the same location as before.
Maybe it’s only a matter of time before 3G no likey PC too.