OK, so I was just reading some reviews and it looks like many recommend the Motorola Surfboard SB5120 over the Linksys BEFCMU10 cable modem.

Any opinions here?

I've used several surfboard modems. They all work excellent. Get the Motorola surfboard modem.

Both work well... why not match components?

OK, well here'* the final answer to the modem question. As I had originally thought when I set up the cable service package, the modem is included in the RoadRunner package and providing my own modem will not save me any money. The provider will provide and install the modem free and the cost is in the monthly rate. There is no way
to reduce the monthly rate, even if you provide your own modem.

That answers my question sufficiently for me.

I have the Surfboard with a linksys router on RR - no problems with the two working fine with each other. Sometimes they try to give you a non-Motorola modem, I can't recall the name, but I only had problems and it was slower! I returned it for a Motorola and have been fine since.

The only way I USED to know of to save money on the monthly bill is to refer new customers, for each one that signs up and gives them (RR) your name you get a free month. Again, its been a few years since I referred anyone and don't know if thats still the policy.

Look familiar?? Disregard the bear and the pink blanket...I was in my sisters room and I decided to put her bear next to it lol

DSCF0379.jpg

I won't talk about the problems I have been having with mine the last couple days. Rest assured, they are software problems, not hardware....

Yeah, thanks everybody!

Logan, how long have you had yours?

Don, I will try and get the ethernet card for the desktop. Can't hurt.

a little over a month.

Hear me out here. The problem started with Firefox. It would randomly hang. Then after while, the error report would hang too. I got mad, deleted Firefox, and started using Internet Explorer again ( ). What do you know? IE started randomly hanging. So I'm like, forget that, so I went BACK to Firefox, and the problem seemed to kinda fix itself.

Somewhere during that whole mess, the computer started running the Check Disk on drive D: at startup, every single time I booted. Drive D: on my computer is the "Backup" partition created by dell. I called Dell, and the guy from India exhausted all of his options on how to fix it, so he decided I needed to reformat. I have reformatted computers SEVERAL times, but I decided I was going to get my moneys worth on the customer service, so I had him walk me through it. I also did this to make sure I did it right and according to Dell'* procedure (incase I was going to need a new HDD because maybe mine had a bad sector or something).

We reformatted the C: partition, and interestingly enough the Check Disk on the D: partition was fixed. I didn't think it would work but it did.

After the reformat, and getting everything reinstalled and what not (about 11 hours of work because I killed my wireless in the process), the cycle seems to be starting over again. Firefox has hung a few times, but this time it was more predictable. It would always happen when starting firefox, so I figured it had to be an extension or something. So I quickly worked on that hoping not to "corrupt" something again, if that is possible. After fixing that, a couple hours down the road my computer hung. I pressed alt ctrl delete to open the task manager, and after 4 minutes or so it finally opened. The "System" process was stuck at 98%. The only way I could get the computer off was to press and hold the power button.

The computer turned off and booted up fine, until I got to the point where you put in your password on windows XP. It hung there, the touchpad and key board were non-functional. So once again I had to power down by holding the power button. Booted again, same thing. So i turned it off the same way again put it on my desk, and ran some errands in town. Turned it on, and it has worked flawlessly ever since (22 hours).

I don't know what to do, because I am pretty sure it is a problem with something I have done. But the only software I use is AIM, FF, Window Media Player, Picasa, PC Cililin, Google Earth, Google Desktop, and Gmail Notifier. They all should be pretty solid programs...

Ideas?

Your positive there'* not a spyware program or some other beast getting to you?

I had somewhat similar symptoms a few months ago on my work computer and have fought the remnants of it for a long time. I recently (this week) used a registry repair program from Stompsoft to clean the registry, which seems to have helped....for now.