Yesterday was an other bad day in my calendar.

It almost started as an usual day, the thing that prevented it to start as an usual day was the power supplier in my city. Before i went to sleep i set my alarm clock to ring at 6:30 AM so till 8AM i can study hungarian, and at 9 to go write my midterm from hungarian.

What happened was that the power supplier cut off the power for i don’t know how much time at night for maintanance->the alarm clock got reset and it didn’t ring.

I woke up at 8:10 am wondering what time it is. When i went out to the kitchen and noticed its 8:10AM i said to myself: “oh f*** it” and similar more “beautiful” words. I took out my hungarian book and ran over the lessons real quick and went to write the midterm.

Good thing that i like literature(you can say lots of bla bla’s from yourself to write more). The midterm was a success(phew that was a relief).

Monday i told a good friend of mine(Adam) that my pc could use a windows reinstall(after installing service pack 3(you know what they say: you regret something after you’ve done it) ). He told me that he has the original XP CD which he got at the university(its an original CD, mostly given out for system administrators at universities, he is the system admin at the campus of the university where he studies).

I told him: “Okay so Wednesday come over at 11″

He did come over and he did bring the cd, he brought 2 just in case 1 wasn’t working. Heck, both cds were scratched like hell and since i loaned my CD to someone(i have no idea to who) i didn’t have an other choice but to install it from one of those CDs.

Everything was running smooth till the setup wizard started copying the files, i got the error message: “setup cannot copy the file” so i took out the cd and placed in the other one. When files couldn’t be copied from the other i switched cds and so on till the files got copied. After that everything went as normal.

I restored my bookmarks, setup the network, internet connection, pc configuration, did everything that’s necessary at a reinstall + a little extra.

I decided to install an internet monitoring application, after installing it i rebooted my PC, when i wanted to connect to the internet(i connect using a PPPoE connection) it just wouldn’t connect.

I kept getting several ADSL errors:

#718 error: The system is busy - try to connect later

#678 error: The connection could not be completed because the remote computer did not answer.

I rechecked everything, i deleted the program, used system restore, even reinstalled windows(got CD from neighbour(that one worked like a charm )

I started checking out the TCP/IP settings, i checked everything 3 times, did a few changes(as i usually do on os reinstall) but still nothing. This went on for like 3 hours when i got pissed(almost ended up like the guy in the picture on the left)

Having no other solution i called a friend of mine at my ISP.

Here’s the reconstructed conversation:

Friend at ISP: Hello, if i may ask who am i talking to?

Me: Alexander, cut the crap, it’s me, Tom.

Alexander: Hey, whats up?

Me: i’m in a small, well big trouble here, i can’t figure out what i messed up, i’m 100% sure that all the connection and TCP/IP settings are correct still i can’t connect to the internet, i get #718 and #678 erro, i even reinstalled windows, reconfigured everything, but its still the same. For3 hours im bugging this shit and still can’ figure it out.

Alexander(laughing): Dude…some of my colleagues are working on the network in your area, thats why it isn’t working.

Me: WHAT? DAMN idiots, can’t they call or let people know that the internet will be cut off?

Alexander(still laughing): sorry man, i’m not in charge of the operation.

Me: ah…i really love this country(you know in which way)

Alexander(laughing harder): yeah, me too

Alexander: i’ll give you a call when my colleagues get back to me saying that they finished

Me: alright, next time tell those retards to let people know when they are stopping the internet

Alexander: okay, will do

He called me around 10PM saying that everything is back to normal now.

You know what i’ve learned from all this? If you have internet problems check settings and if you think everything is ok don’t start reconfiguring stuff and reinstalling windows, simply call your ISP and ask them if the problem is on their side.

If its on your side ask for support