virgin beginners help please

[littlewren]

I am very very afraid of computers. My daughter complained so much about my dial up connection being so slow that I felt compelled to take the plunge. She persuaded me to go with Virgin which came today but she has disappeared off to London and left me to it. Now I can't remember what the installation man said about switching it off at night. I am used to switching everything off and disconnecting all plugs at night can I do this with the Virgin modem? can I unplug the virgin box too? (I have left the wireless router still wrapped up she can sort that out when she comes home)

They gave me an instruction booklet for the TV but nothing for the internet.

Too frightened at the moment to enjoy broadband and too scared to do any family history......

many thanks for any help.
Littlewren.

[jc26red]

I have virgin broadband and I leave it on all day and night, had done for years with no problem, it will do no harm leaving it on.

If your daughter is going to add a router, then turning off at night might disrupt connection next day if you don't switch it on in the right order.
I'm not sure if your broadband engineer mentioned it to you but when you turn on your broadband it has to be done in the right order.

Switch on the broadband modem, wait till all the lights flash and ready light is on solid.
Then switch on the router, again wait till the lights flash across
Then switch on the pc.

Of course if you don't have a router, just  miss out the middle step .
Until you have the router installed, you can still enjoy broadband by attaching your pc to the virgin modem using a lan cable.  It needs to be connected to your pc via the lan connection not the same modem connection as you do with dialup.
It should then work straight away when you click on your internet icon.
Impress your daughter.... see if you can connect your pc before she comes home! You can leave the router to her to work out 

[Preshous]

Hi Littlewren

The modem and virgin box are best left switched on they are designed for this. You could switch them off but it would take a while for everything to settle down on switching on again, which kind of defeats the object of broadband.

Gary

[goldy]

ours is left on 24-7 never a problem in past ten years.
If you are worried buy a surge protector extension £7 in argos

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=1500001801&productId=1500512745&langId=-1&engine=froogle&keyword=4+Way+Surge+Protector

[littlewren]

Thank you jc26red, goldy and preshous. I guess I shall have to learn to leave it all plugged in then. May I ask two  further silly questions. What about when you go on holiday? I usually switch my electric off and what happens if there is a power cut? last year we had the electric go off for 4 hours.

many thanks
little wren

[lesleyhannah]

I'm very grateful for this thread. I've been using dialup for many years, but have just had virgin broadband installed. Very chatty engineer, but like littlewren I was completely lost when left to to cope on my own. He didn't say anything about what order to switch on and off. It's all in my bedroom so I've now got little blue and green and red lights flashing all night!

I've got all my equipment running off a single socket with surge-protected extensions. I used to switch the lot off at night, but presumably now need to leave them all on. I'm getting my flat rewired next month when all the electricity will be switched off - I hadn't realised this could cause a problem, so now I'm in a bit of a state - I don't have anyone to ask for help if it all goes wrong.

Virgin left no information about the broadband - it took me ages to find out how to access my email, mainly because he'd put the google page as my home page. If I'd been new to computers I still wouldn't have worked it out.

Why do I always read these threads when it's too late?? But I am going to print out the order I need to switch on and off as it looks like I'm going to need it. Thanks for the tip  jc26red

[groom]

Hi

I'm fairly sure it wont do any harm to turn off the electricity when you go away etc, I always disconnect mine then, just incase there is a storm! It's just that it is easier for day to day use to leave it on all the time.

Jan

[jc26red]

I only use the webpage to access my mail when I'm not at home

I use windows mail (thats Vista) to send/receive mail and I receive my mail with that. If you are still with XP, then Outlook express is just as easy

Its easy to set up.  If you need help, then post a fresh thread.

Virgin, have a tendency to delete read messages off of their web server after a certain period and thats not acceptable to me.

yes, no problem turning it all off when you go away, just remember the order to turn it all back on... on a daily basis its a pain to do

[littlewren]

Thanks for clarifying about what to do when going away Jan and jc26red.

Lesleyhannah, I am glad that its not just me thats finds things not so clear. I hope your rewiring next month goes smoothly.

Little Wren.