Firewalls - a quick question

[DeeBeeS]

Today my house was struck by lightning which knocked out all the electrics, I was using my computer at the time which immediately closed and there was a loud bang from my Linkys modem router so when eventually the electrics came back thank goodness my computer still was OK but the modem has had it.

In any event I have ordered a new one which is a Netgear DG834 modem router with firewall which after various searches on Google has good reports.

My question is that am I able to run my software firewall as well as the one on the router or should I just use the hardware one.

Having said this was a quick question I have just thought of something else, I did have a Belkin surge protector whichI think saved the computer however it used to start when I hit the space bar, It does'nt do this anymore I have checked the bios and it is marked to start up when the space bar is hit. Any ideas please on the cause, thanks a lot in anticipation for any advice given.

David

 

[Admiral Michael]

You can run both a router and a software router, if you have other computers and use file sharing then you'll just have to allow file sharing.

As for the surge protector, if your house was hit then you should really replace all surge protectors as they aren't made for multiple hits.

As for the spacebar, maybe try removing the surge protector. There may be a chance the computer did receive a it of the surge and did something to the motherboard.

 

[DeeBeeS]

Thanks AM for your quick reply. The information supplied is very helpful. With respect to the keyboard which is a Microsoft Internet Keyboard every thing on it works appart from that as described in my first post. I have a spare which I tried but this will not start the computer with the space bar either. Both are used on a PS2 connection and not USB.

Everything other than this seems to be working so I think I will have to live with pressing the start up button on the computer not a problem really.

Thanks once again.

 

[Dark Atheist]

cant the key be changed in the bios ?

 

[ray_gillespie]

Just be careful if you want to use port forwarding with that router - I have had two and I have never been able to set up port forwarding with them for some reason. I've set it up on other routers without a hitch but there seems to be some sort of bug, at least in the v3 of the DG834, which makes it tricky to set up.

Other than that, it's a pretty good router.

 

[DeeBeeS]

Since I last wrote, several strange things have happened to the computer, incidentally I did look at the bios and can confirm that it is set to start on using the space bar. I now have to start it using the button on front of system, it also appears to need to cool off before you can restart it. It's performance has become very slow and there has been intermittent problems.

As the computer is eight years old (loads of cash used for many upgrades) I feel that perhaps it is time for a change. I have bit the bullet and ordered a Dell XPS 420. I have read through various opinions some good some bad but I feel that you would get this with most makes. Thanks all for your suggestions, much appreciated.

Dave

 

[DeeBeeS]

Just for information I have solved the problem with my old computer. By removing Adware and Adwatch everything went back to how it used to be. I cannot understand why this programme caused so many problems on my computer will not use it again although I had the paid version.

Dave