jrfuda
Active Member
I was away from home for 2 weeks (in NC for Christmas) and returned home on the 31st. The only one home was the cat (and for an hour or so each day a friend who was watching the cat).
Anyway, about a week into vacation, I noticed that all my X10 wireless security devices had communications failures (using a W800). Rebooting the PC remotely didn't fix anything, so I figure, maybe the serial cable came undone (which has happened before, as I'm using adapters that do not allow me to "screw" the cable to the W800).
About 5 days later, I started getting "cannot send to CM11A' messages. I now started to think that my com ports were failing, except that the CM11A was on a motherboard RS232 port and the W800 on a port on my Rocketport 8-port.
After reading several posts about the "cannot send" messages, I decided that my CM11A must have gone bad. Since I've been wanting to replace it with a TI103 for a while, I figured now was the tie and went ahead and ordered one from Martin, hoping it would be waiting for me when I got home on the 31st.
Anyway, I got home on the 31st and had 2 packages. A 3-pack of Zwave modules from HST (The special they had, hopefully they won't blow on me) and the HDD for my tablet that I had RMA'd. I'll probably have the TI103 early next week.
The first thing I noticed when I got home, other than the lights thats should not be on, was that my IR543's LED was glowing steady red (It's on house code M) I then remembered about a zillion M all lights on commands in my HS log. This must be the source of the lockups.
I have the 543 located on the hood of one of my aquariums. I use it for 'local' control of the aquariums' lights and air (and also IR, just for those two devices, since I use my Ocelot for all else). There were also cat prints on the 543. It appears that the cat learned how to climb onto the fish tank, which is normally to high to jump on to, by negotiating a few other pieces of furniture first. Apparently, he placed water soaked paws onto the 543 and caused a short in the form of a continuous all lights on command. Unplugging the 543 fixed the CM11A problem - but I'm still looking forward to getting the TI103 - hopefully it will help with some other issues. Fortunately, opening the IR543 and drying it out fixed it, so it's still usable (and I didn't even have to use windex). Now the problem of the W800 remained.
I went to check the connection on the W800 and it looked fine. I thought, perhaps, it had gone bad (though I've never heard of this before). While checking the connection, I noticed that the X10 wireless video receiver that I use for a baby monitor was laying on the floor behind my entertainment center. It appears that the cat also learned how to scale the even higher shelves and managed to knock the video receiver off the high shelf it was on. During its fall to earth, it knocked the wall warts for the W800 and itself out of the socket (and broke its own antenna). I plugged the warts back in and all was fixed. A Little tape fixed the video receiver's antenna (the wire was intact, just the plastic cracked). So everything was working again.
I figured hat I was batting 1000 so far, so I decided to take the factory reconditioned HDD and install it into the tablet. Acronis True Image made this task pretty easy (although the reconditioned HDD had some bad sectors and I encountered the same errors Rupp did - fixed by error checking the disk). The tablet was up and running in about 45 minutes, but it could not get onto the wireless network.
A quick check of my WAP showed the LEDs not doing what they were supposed to do. I performed a few resets and still nothing. This is, by the way, the a replacement (RMA'd) WAP for one that went bad under warranty. Given the failure rate of these (It's a Hawking) I will not be buying another Hawking product. I guess I'll wait for a Linksys or D-Link to go on sale. In the mean time, I used some CAT5 to restore connectivity to the tablet, so at least I can use it (though tethered).
So, everything's 'working' for now. Let's see what I can mess-up installing those three Zwave devices and the TI103
Anyway, about a week into vacation, I noticed that all my X10 wireless security devices had communications failures (using a W800). Rebooting the PC remotely didn't fix anything, so I figure, maybe the serial cable came undone (which has happened before, as I'm using adapters that do not allow me to "screw" the cable to the W800).
About 5 days later, I started getting "cannot send to CM11A' messages. I now started to think that my com ports were failing, except that the CM11A was on a motherboard RS232 port and the W800 on a port on my Rocketport 8-port.
After reading several posts about the "cannot send" messages, I decided that my CM11A must have gone bad. Since I've been wanting to replace it with a TI103 for a while, I figured now was the tie and went ahead and ordered one from Martin, hoping it would be waiting for me when I got home on the 31st.
Anyway, I got home on the 31st and had 2 packages. A 3-pack of Zwave modules from HST (The special they had, hopefully they won't blow on me) and the HDD for my tablet that I had RMA'd. I'll probably have the TI103 early next week.
The first thing I noticed when I got home, other than the lights thats should not be on, was that my IR543's LED was glowing steady red (It's on house code M) I then remembered about a zillion M all lights on commands in my HS log. This must be the source of the lockups.
I have the 543 located on the hood of one of my aquariums. I use it for 'local' control of the aquariums' lights and air (and also IR, just for those two devices, since I use my Ocelot for all else). There were also cat prints on the 543. It appears that the cat learned how to climb onto the fish tank, which is normally to high to jump on to, by negotiating a few other pieces of furniture first. Apparently, he placed water soaked paws onto the 543 and caused a short in the form of a continuous all lights on command. Unplugging the 543 fixed the CM11A problem - but I'm still looking forward to getting the TI103 - hopefully it will help with some other issues. Fortunately, opening the IR543 and drying it out fixed it, so it's still usable (and I didn't even have to use windex). Now the problem of the W800 remained.
I went to check the connection on the W800 and it looked fine. I thought, perhaps, it had gone bad (though I've never heard of this before). While checking the connection, I noticed that the X10 wireless video receiver that I use for a baby monitor was laying on the floor behind my entertainment center. It appears that the cat also learned how to scale the even higher shelves and managed to knock the video receiver off the high shelf it was on. During its fall to earth, it knocked the wall warts for the W800 and itself out of the socket (and broke its own antenna). I plugged the warts back in and all was fixed. A Little tape fixed the video receiver's antenna (the wire was intact, just the plastic cracked). So everything was working again.
I figured hat I was batting 1000 so far, so I decided to take the factory reconditioned HDD and install it into the tablet. Acronis True Image made this task pretty easy (although the reconditioned HDD had some bad sectors and I encountered the same errors Rupp did - fixed by error checking the disk). The tablet was up and running in about 45 minutes, but it could not get onto the wireless network.
A quick check of my WAP showed the LEDs not doing what they were supposed to do. I performed a few resets and still nothing. This is, by the way, the a replacement (RMA'd) WAP for one that went bad under warranty. Given the failure rate of these (It's a Hawking) I will not be buying another Hawking product. I guess I'll wait for a Linksys or D-Link to go on sale. In the mean time, I used some CAT5 to restore connectivity to the tablet, so at least I can use it (though tethered).
So, everything's 'working' for now. Let's see what I can mess-up installing those three Zwave devices and the TI103
