It hasn’t been a month yet and I’m already having lots of problems with using the Huawei E170 modem that came with my StarHub subscription. Grrr! There are frequent disconnections/hangups that occur at irregular intervals. What’s more, my Mac froze 4 times in a period of a week and I had to shutdown and reboot the system each time. Prior to using the device, I haven’t had a single reboot of my laptop due to system failure from the time I bought it.

But I don’t think the issue is network related since the problem is isolated on the Mac. I now connect to the internet using a shared internet connection thru a Windows (Compaq Presario) laptop and I’ve never encountered these issues.

Apparently, I’m not alone with this glitch. And a forum post suggests that the problem is caused by USB power ripple spikes and can be solved by adding capacitors to the USB power line on a patch cable to ‘filter’ DC voltage for the 3G transmitter. (Possibly a Mac is more sensitive to this flaw). The problem/solution tandem makes sense but I’d rather not introduce any risk to my precious lappy.

I’m raising this issue with StarHub and asking for an alternative modem. But right now, I’ll have to settle with getting my internet connection thru another laptop (using ad-hoc wireless connection) if I connect for long periods of time.

Related posts:

  1. Subscribed to 7.2Mbps mobile broadband
  2. Getting Connected: Speed vs Mobility
  3. Thinking of upgrading my hard disk to 500GB