A Solution Is Found!!!!! (long story)

[amkazen]

Finally!! Since early July 2005 my DW 6000 system has barely worked, if at all.  I could MAYBE get on-line, and if I could, I would be able to surf to MAYBE one site, and then I could not go anywhere on-line. The system would just flat die with a web-acceleration error.  I called Direcway support so many times I lost count. They would all say the same thing, "It is your PC, try this, try that, etc. etc."  It was so frsutrating.  I finally in early August after I returned from my vacation to get Direcway to bump me up to a higher tech support level.  I went through a bunch of the same stuff as before, plus a little more.  Nothing worked and this tech support guy told me it was my NIC card in my desktop.  This was even though I had the same Internet access problem with my laptop although I know the guy did not believe me and did not listen to me.  Well, my desktop's NIC card is built in on my Gigabyte motherboard so I took the whole PC down to a local repair shop and asked them to check it out.  It worked beautifully on their Internet connection and addtionally I had them install a separate NIC card to try at home, even though I knew it would not change anything.  I was right...nothing changed.  I had the same problem as before.  I called Direcway support a few more times and was eventually bumped up to the highest level of tech support, and was given a new, direct phone # and a special PIN number to use when calling this new support #.  Well, after 2 weeks of playing telephone tag, I finally got a guy on the phone and even though I was not at home when I got him on the phone, he was able to do a test on my system, even though my PC was turned off, and viola!!  Within 2 minutes, or less, he diagnosed my problem as a bad radio transmitter on my dish, and not the modem as I had decided the problem was.  He said he would have a repair technician contact me to come out to the house to change the transmitter out and all would be good after that.  Well, the technician called me a few days later, set the day up, called to cancel and reschedule from late in the afternoon to 7:00 am the next morning, and actually was at my doorstep at 7:00 am as he had promised.  He was up on the roof for about 10 minutes and came down and said he would not fix my problem.  In fact, he said he doubted my problem was the radio transmitter.  He then went into the house to look at my modem.  He then stated I had bigger problems than my transmitter, if in fact that was the problem at all.  He said my problem was a substandard install and here is what he listed as problems: 1) dish installed on a metal ProPanel roof which is against Direcway installation guidelines; 2)  system not grounded; 3)  dish installation was loose on roof and could be moved about an inch or so, depending on the wind.  The installer had missed the rafters and so over the past 19 months or so it had loosened up; 4)  the coax cable ran into my house and to the modem was terminated incorrectly with crimp fittings, vs. using compression fittings, and the fittings were loose.  He said Direcway would have to replace that part of my roof as they had drilled into it when they should have done a pole-mount installation.  He took pictures and wrote up the problems.  I called Direcway yesterday as I had not heard anything from them in two days about the corrective actions, etc. and I felt 2 days was sufficient time to get back to me.  I was told it was still in review, and more time was needed.  I was also told Direcway normally does not warranty installation after 12 months.  So, it will be interesting to see what the outcome is.  I hope it can be fixed within the next week or so, and then I can try to get a credit from Direcway for the time I have been dead in the water.  I am just happy to know what the problem is.  The last tech guy I spoke to who told me this issue was still under review said my whole roof was acting as a conductor, or something like that, and I was lucky I had not had a lightning strike, etc.  I told him the regular tech support guys always told me to undo the coax from the back of the modem and to touch the center wire to discharge a static build-up.  He laughed and said they like to tell people to do that and when I told him it always helped me, he said he beleived that and that I was probably one oout of every 10,000 customers where it would actually work.  I will update this once everything is fixed.  My guess is this will be a small claims issue against the original installer but I guess time will tell, and it all depends on what Direcway does.

amkazen

[tbaker397]

Wow, thats a lot! Sorry to hear bout your problems man. I hope everything gets worked out for ya.

Maybe you should check out wild blue and think about ditching DWay.

[tdawnaz]

u started reporting problems early july...this is sept... so actually the records should show that u started reporting problems before the 12 months were up...so u should be warrantied...huh?

[resopalrabotnick]

exactly, that and the fact that the installation did not become faulty over time but was substandard from day one should help. if you don't have them you should see if you can get a hold of the tech that came out and get the writeup documents he made to prepare for a possible small claims court proceeding.

[tdawnaz]

and make copies of everything and ONLY GIVE THEM THE COPIES...save the originals for urself

[amkazen]

Thanks for the good ideas.  They will help,, and yes, I agree about the problem being there before the warranty was up.  I would guess there are records for each time I called since I have had this system. 

Now, for a stupid question, what is wild blue?  I guess I will search for it on this site and google it also.  If there is a competition to Direcway I will seriously look into it.

Thanks again, and I'll keep you posted.

amkazen

[kol]

Thanks for the good ideas.

[tbaker397]

yea its another satellite service. When I had Direcway, i got it installed when the G4 or GR4 sat was just launched so it was nice, lol/.

[budbem]

Besides all the other problem the reason you were getting the tcp diabled is because of the dish not being grounded.  Static build up is the #1 cause of the tcp not working- You still may need to unpug power cable from back of modem then disconnect the bottom wire and hold on to it for 30 sec.  Hence grounding your system - You should do this 1 time a month at least or as often as needed.  good luck