# Lost Wifi During Power Outage in Cuernavaca How to Restore Phone



## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

*Lost Wifi During Power Outage in Cuernavaca. Will Cell Phone Ever Work Again?*

Hi am not tech savy at all. Lost my wifi connection last night during a power outage. Now that the electricity has returned, my phone screen is totally dark. Can't turn it on. 

Is that normal that I can't even turn phone on? Am waiting for landlord to arrive to reset modem, which is not in my apartment. Does this sound like a major issue where I'll have to buy a new phone?


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## perropedorro (Mar 19, 2016)

MissThing said:


> Hi am not tech savy at all. Lost my wifi connection last night during a power outage. Now that the electricity has returned, my phone screen is totally dark. Can't turn it on.
> 
> Is that normal that I can't even turn phone on? Am waiting for landlord to arrive to reset modem, which is not in my apartment. Does this sound like a major issue where I'll have to buy a new phone?


Your cellphone and the modem are separate issues. Never heard of a phone not turning on just because it lost connectivity. Phones get carried in and out of wifi hotspots all day long and nothing like that happens. Modems can be knocked down by power outages. In late July we had an electrical storm that fried most of modems in town. The local Telmex office, with a line stretching out the door, needed a special delivery to replace all of them.
While your landlord fixes the modem just take your cell into a repair center and see what they have to say. Maybe it's something quite simple, or like any electronic device nowadays, if it's over a couple of years old it might not be worth fixing.


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

Wow, Just bought it last November and it was working perfectly until the blackout at which point the screen went dark. I still don't have my wifi restored yet, my modem is located in an apartment I don't live in and am waiting for the landlord to arrive.

I plugged the phone into its charger after the electricity returned and this morning unplugged it. Now even after removing battery, the phone seems dead. 

So worried that this could happen again and that every time there's a power outage, I'll lose my wifi, have to wait for my landlord to drive from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to turn back on the modem and I'll have to buy a new phone.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

Are you sure the phone doesn't simply need to be powered up ?

As for your modem - do you get your service through Telmex ? In your browser's URL section (where it says expatforum up top) - if you enter 192.168.1.254 what happens ?


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

It's not quite clear what sort of a phone it is that has a dark screen - is it:
a) a cell phone
b) a desk phone base unit with a display
c) a hand set with a display wired to a desk phone
d) a remote wireless handset for a house phone base unit

(b) and (c) are basically the same thing, just listing separately for thoroughness.

Also, if it's not a cell phone, the base unit can be a regular land line or it could be VOIP (Voice Over IP, meaning over the internet). 
A regular landline is a completely separate system from internet, and there's a separate phone line coming into the house to carry the telephone service. 
On the other hand, a VOIP system uses the internet service to send and receive and will not work if internet is down. 
And if you are in a condo or modern building it's possible your phone is connected to something called a PBX. That's at least true for the US, I assume they use them here in mexico in modern office buildings sometimes too.

If it's a cell phone (case a) we're talking about, do as perropedoro said and take it in somewhere for help.

If not, the first thing to try is, if everything else is working, is to unplug the power from the base unit and wait 2 minutes and plug it back in and wait another 2 minutes and see if it works. That (slow) process covers a number of possible problems, so it is the first and easiest thing to try. Two minutes is recommended because it needs around 30 seconds and if I say 2 minutes most people will probably wait the full 30 seconds 

Advanced users sometimes wait only 15 seconds, then if that doesn't fix it, they try again, only waiting longer 

If your phone is plain old telephone system (i.e. not VOIP/PBX), you need to report the outage to the telephone company, there's probably a line that got knocked down somewhere outside your house.

If it's a PBX somebody needs to reset the PBX box, which is somewhere in the condo.

I'll stop at this point pending more info on what you really have. And is your internet coming over cable TV or do you have something called DSL?


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

perropedorro said:


> Your cellphone and the modem are separate issues. Never heard of a phone not turning on just because it lost connectivity. Phones get carried in and out of wifi hotspots all day long and nothing like that happens. Modems can be knocked down by power outages. In late July we had an electrical storm that fried most of modems in town. The local Telmex office, with a line stretching out the door, needed a special delivery to replace all of them.
> While your landlord fixes the modem just take your cell into a repair center and see what they have to say. Maybe it's something quite simple, or like any electronic device nowadays, if it's over a couple of years old it might not be worth fixing.


Yes - there was a time earlier this year where we had a service call into Telmex and when the guy showed up his vehicle was so packed with replacement modems he could hardly see out the windows.

At this point I have perhaps 3 or 4 Telmex DSL modems/routers in the closet. Now Telmex has switched us to VDSL. I picked up the (virtually) identical VDSL modem on MercadoLibre this month for 380 pesos (including shipping). Now in the event we have a service issue I can easily swap my router and see if the problem clears up.

We also have gotten in the habit of unplugging our electronics/phones when we hear thunder.


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

I have a Telcel cell phone. It was working perfectly until the power outage last night. I'm renting an apartment in Cuernavaca from a landlord who lives in Mexico City. The modem is located in another apartment I don't have access to until the landlord drives up from Cuernavaca later today.

I have removed the battery and let it sit for a minute and put it back in but the screen is totally dark. The phone doesn't power back on. 

This is so frustrating.


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

Hi. I'm using a cell phone. The modem, router all that stuff is not in my apartment. My Internet connection returned automatically a few minutes after the outage. My wifi didn't, and somehow this has made my phone dysfunctional.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

MissThing said:


> Hi. I'm using a cell phone. The modem, router all that stuff is not in my apartment. My Internet connection returned automatically a few minutes after the outage. My wifi didn't, and somehow this has made my phone dysfunctional.


Are you using a laptop or a desktop computer ? Is there a network cable going to your computer - or is it a wireless connection ?

Edit : Of course you could also take your cell phone and hop in a taxi to Plaza Cuernavaca. There is a large Telcel service center there...


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

Hi. I'm totally wireless. Everything's in the apartment next door. There's definitely a disadvantage to having a landlord who is so far away. I'm going to have to take your advice and go to Telcel. Just moved here and don't know where much is.

I'm almost sure that Telcel will try and sell me another phone, which I'm trying to avoid. Just bought this last November. It's not even a year old and the issue with it came about as a result of a power outage, something I fear will happen here again and I'll have to keep buying phones and wait a day for my landlord to drive up from Mexico City to reset the modem!!

Misery...


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

MissThing said:


> Hi. I'm totally wireless. Everything's in the apartment next door. There's definitely a disadvantage to having a landlord who is so far away. I'm going to have to take your advice and go to Telcel. Just moved here and don't know where much is.
> 
> Thanks!


Well if you are totally wireless - and you are communicating with us - then you should tell your landlord there is no need for him to drive from Mexico City. 

If you haven't yet - you should take note of the phone number for Radio Taxi. They will come to your door to pick you up. They will surely take you to Plaza Cuernavaca.


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I doubt there's anything wrong with your phone. Some phones have two "off" modes. One of them is really just a "sleep" mode, and that's the one that you use most of the time and you think of as "off". The other is a hard "off", completely powered down. To get the phone to come out of the hard "off" you have to do something special - sometimes it's something like hold a button in for several seconds. 

So I hope you just have to learn/remember how to turn it on from a hard-off state.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

eastwind said:


> I doubt there's anything wrong with your phone. Some phones have two "off" modes. One of them is really just a "sleep" mode, and that's the one that you use most of the time and you think of as "off". The other is a hard "off", completely powered down. To get the phone to come out of the hard "off" you have to do something special - sometimes it's something like hold a button in for several seconds.
> 
> So I hope you just have to learn/remember how to turn it on from a hard-off state.


On our Samsung S4 it can take as long as 10 seconds... (and it is the 'power button' on the right hand side as you look at the screen). I've never let the Samsung drain down to this point - but I have had cell phones which will power themselves down in low battery situations...


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

MissThing, if you post the model of your cellphone somebody can look up the magic way to turn it on.


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it, but there's something that happened when the wifi went off. It's strange. I can't charge my phone. It's a Lanix Ilium X200. I don't have any faith in this cell phone being revivied from whatever happened when the wifi signal ended.

I said I was totally wireless, but I'm running off a modem and router in an apartment I don't have access to!

I have a Samsung phone I bought from Metro PCS in NY and I'm wondering if it's possible to take it to Telcel and get them to do whatever you do to use it here?


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

MissThing said:


> Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it, but there's something that happened when the wifi went off. It's strange. I can't charge my phone. It's a Lanix Ilium X200. I don't have any faith in this cell phone being revivied from whatever happened when the wifi signal ended.
> 
> I said I was totally wireless, but I'm running off a modem and router in an apartment I don't have access to!
> 
> I have a Samsung phone I bought from Metro PCS in NY and I'm wondering if it's possible to take it to Telcel and get them to do whatever you do to use it here?


If there was any problem with the modem/router in the other apartment you would not be able to post on this forum. You do not have any wifi problems.

Try this - setup your Lanix phone as you would to recharge it - AND - while it is plugged into the power outlet press and hold the button on the right hand side and count to 20. Does it do anything ?

As long as your Samsung phone is GSM you should be able to use it in Mexico. Older Samsung phones may not be GSM.


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Well it would suck if it can't be revived. I've never heard of a cell phone getting zapped by an electrical storm - except in cases where somebody was outside and got struck by lightning, and in those cases the cell phone was the least of the person's worries.

I could see if maybe it was on the charger during the storm and the electric lines got hit and the phone took a surge, but I'd expect you to see some damage to the charger transformer in that case. Melted or brown plastic, for example.

I found a video showing how to do a hard reset on your phone. It's in spanish.... Looks like you hold in both volume buttons for a couple seconds, and maybe a third button as well.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

eastwind said:


> Well it would suck if it can't be revived. I've never heard of a cell phone getting zapped by an electrical storm - except in cases where somebody was outside and got struck by lightning, and in those cases the cell phone was the least of the person's worries.
> 
> I could see if maybe it was on the charger during the storm and the electric lines got hit and the phone took a surge, but I'd expect you to see some damage to the charger transformer in that case. Melted or brown plastic, for example.
> 
> I found a video showing how to do a hard reset on your phone. It's in spanish.... Looks like you hold in both volume buttons for a couple seconds, and maybe a third button as well. Lanix Ilium X200 Hard Reset (RESTAURAR DE FABRICA) - YouTube


Wouldn't you think that would be a last resort sort of thing ?


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

Hi, thanks for the reset info. I just held both volumes buttons and power button and tried, but nothing happened. My Samsung is my next resort. Do you know how I can unlock it? Will Telcel do it?


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

MissThing said:


> Hi, thanks for the reset info. I just held both volumes buttons and power button and tried, but nothing happened. My Samsung is my next resort. Do you know how I can unlock it? Will Telcel do it?


 You have probably covered this already, but are you sure the battery on your phone is not completely dead for some reason.

If your Samsung phone is unlocked you can just take the SIM chip out of your Lanix and put it in your Samsung (not a Note 7, I hope ). If the Samsung is locked you will have to get the US carrier to give you an unlock code. Good luck with that. I tried to get T-Mobile to unlock a phone for several years before giving up and buying one unlocked from a manufacturer with no carrier involved at all. I don't know about Metro PCs but if you bought your Samsung from an outlet with no service plan for a carrier it probably is unlocked. It is easy enough to pull the SIM out of the Lanix and try it in the Samsung.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

I agree with Eastwind that it could be that the charger isn't working. The charger has a transformer that can get zapped by a power surge and then it stops functioning. I've had that happen with no obvious physical damage that I could see. I initially thought it was my device, but my husband got a new charger and voila! I'd take your phone to Telcel, ask them to charge it (if completely drained it can take several minutes before there is enough charge to get it to turn on). If that doesn't work, then they can troubleshoot the phone itself.


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

Well, my friends, I took the phone to Telcel this afternoon and they told me to leave it with them and come back in seven days and the rest is a mystery because my Spanish is not the best!! 

Thanks so much for the troubleshooting advice!!!

I'll post here if they come through for me and repair my phone! Maybe useful info for anyone who has the same issues...)


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## Orfin (Sep 26, 2016)

I had a device that used a power adaptor for power. Took 120v and stepped it down to around 9v. Like a charger but it was direct power supply with no battery being charged.
The power went out with a surge and the device did come back on but the surge had come all the way through the power adaptor(which survived) and left damage in the device. The screen backlight went out permanently and there was a permanent digital audio pop any time i switched to or from the page it was on when the power surge hit. 1 out of 500 virtual pages was slightly damaged. 
Some cases the power adaptor or charger survives while the device gets fried to one extemet or the other. Power outages often occur with surges. 

So How usual or unusual are power outages across Mexico? Are some regions more stable than others? I am bringing a surge protector for my expensive electronics and maybe now will get another one for the rest of my stuff.. 
They do sell surge protectors in Mexico ?


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Orfin said:


> …So How usual or unusual are power outages across Mexico? Are some regions more stable than others? I am bringing a surge protector for my expensive electronics and maybe now will get another one for the rest of my stuff..
> They do sell surge protectors in Mexico ?


Surge protectors are easily available. The reliability of power probably depends on where you live. I live in Guadalajara Centro. I lose power probably a dozen times a year. Outages last anywhere from a second to a day. This year there was a period of brownouts. There was power but the voltage (measured) was around 60-80 volts. Some LED bulbs would light others not. An old incandescent came on weakly. Sometimes it is an obvious reason like a falling tree takes out the lines. They are very good about fixing those quickly, even on a weekend night. More often it is not obvious why the power is off. It will affect a few blocks around me.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

Orfin said:


> So How usual or unusual are power outages across Mexico? Are some regions more stable than others? I am bringing a surge protector for my expensive electronics and maybe now will get another one for the rest of my stuff..
> They do sell surge protectors in Mexico ?


Surge protectors are in common use in Mexico and are easy to find here.

Regarding power outages, I can only speak for my area of Mexico City. They happen occasionally, and when they do may last for a few minutes up to a couple of hours. It hasn't been a big problem for me.


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Back in the 90's when modems hooked up to plain old telephone lines, lightning struck the telephone system somewhere near my house and a surge came in on the telephone line. Not only did it fry my modem, but the spike went on through the modem (a separate box) and into the computer and fried some components inside my computer.

Since then I have always had a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) for my computer. UPS is a misnomer, because it's just a rechargeable battery with extra electronics to make the battery kick in under power-outages or brown outs. A UPS is much more expensive than a surge suppressor (those power strip things with resettable fuses), and protects in additional ways.

The UPS provides surge protection, but also the power sent to the computer is "cleaner", meaning not only closer to spec as far as voltage is concerned but also the shape of the power waves is closer to the ideal than what often comes in from the power company. 

People who have the training to know have told me that brown-outs are quite damaging to electronics, and surge suppressors do nothing to protect your equipment from extended exposure to under-voltage power, but a UPS will kick in when the power is under-voltage and protect your equipment.

Besides the up-front cost, UPS's are expensive in another way, the battery wears out after a few years, and you have to replace either just the battery in the UPS or the whole UPS, depending on the model. The ones I buy are APC brand, and the manufacturer uses software to encourage you to replace the battery after 3 years, though you can go longer.

UPS's are often called "battery back ups", and they do keep you going for a few minutes after a complete loss of power. You can't afford one big enough to keep you going for hours. I typically get one that's got enough battery to power all my stuff for 5 minutes. That gives me plenty of time to save and shut down in case of a real outage, but the main purpose is to bridge the quick blips and clean dirty power.

A mid-range or better UPS will have in and out jacks for phone lines too, and protects against spikes that come in on the phone lines. This is still useful if you have DSL.

Since I have had a UPS I never bother disconnecting or powering off anything for thunderstorms and I've not lost any equipment due to spikes in those 20 years.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

eastwind said:


> …
> Since I have had a UPS I never bother disconnecting or powering off anything for thunderstorms and I've not lost any equipment due to spikes in those 20 years.


In the US before coming to Mexico, I at various times had UPS systems for my computer. I bought one here in Mexico, but it never worked right. It seemed to occasionally interrupt the power rather than provide power during interruptions. Finally I disconnected it. My computer (a 2013 iMac) does fine through the frequent power outages that it is subjected to. All of the software now dynamically keeps a record of what I am doing so I never lose more than a few characters when power fails in the middle of typing an email message or any other kind of document, even if I haven't saved it. It reboots after a power failure with no delays. In the old days, a reboot after a power failure took a long time but no more. I have just stopped worrying about power outages. Occasionally the power goes to a state where it is flickering off and on, and then I disconnect the computer so that it doesn't keep starting to boot every few seconds. Otherwise, my computer is on all the time. I only turn it off when I am going to be away from home overnight.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

Outside where the power comes in off the street we have a closet which houses a box the size of a large desktop computer. It apparently is a voltage regulator. It was there when we bought the place and is always on. Yet - our temperamental top of the line Maytag washer requires it's own dedicated voltage regulator as well. That one is much smaller. Otherwise most of our computers etc are plugged into surge protectors. We have probably fried two routers in three years anyway. If it is a particularly bad electrical storm I unplug the power to the routers and vonage and unplug the tv and all its attached devices.

edit : We did manage to fry a bi-directional CFE meter shortly after installing the PV system. We still had power in the house - the meter simply stopped using the power from the panels.


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## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

UPS's typically have two kinds of power outlets for you to plug equipment into. Some of the outlets have battery backup and some do not. You can plug your printer, for example, into one of the outlets that does not have battery backup. The printer will be protected from bad electricity, but will lose power immediately. You plug the computer, monitor, and maybe the modem into the battery backup outlets. 

There is a load limit on the battery-backup outlets. You are in theory supposed to add up the power requirements (in watts) of all the devices you will plug into them and it must be less than the stated load limit for the battery, otherwise the battery isn't big enough to handle the load. But it's difficult to measure exact requirements for the computer. A desktop computer that has a "300 watt" power supply will draw substantially less than 300 watts, for example. There are tables that you can find on the internet that let you estimate, they are very generic, for example "50 watts for a motherboard". Your equipment may vary a lot. High end video cards were getting very power hungry for a couple generations, lately they've worked to reduce their power requirements, but they're still big eaters.

Tundragreen, the behavior you described could be caused by 1) plugging the computer into an outlet that was not backed up by the battery, 2) having too much plugged into outlets that were backed up by the battery or 3) a manufacturing defect in the UPS.

It was probably interrupting power during slight brown-outs or when your power was going off-spec.

Mid to upper-end UPSs let you configure to some extent how far out of spec the power has to be before it interrupts, but tweaking that really requires a background in electrical engineering.

Laptops that have a built-in battery may have some circuits very similar to a UPS built in, I don't know. I've never heard of anyone worrying about using a UPS with a laptop. I don't know much about macs at all; I don't know whether your imac is a laptop or has a battery or not.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

eastwind said:


> …
> Tundragreen, the behavior you described could be caused by 1) plugging the computer into an outlet that was not backed up by the battery, 2) having too much plugged into outlets that were backed up by the battery or 3) a manufacturing defect in the UPS.
> 
> It was probably interrupting power during slight brown-outs or when your power was going off-spec.
> ...


It was pretty clearly 3). The outlets with backup and without were clearly marked, and the only thing plugged into the UPC was well within capacity. It was just defective. I thought about trying to return it; I bought it from a hole-in-the-wall place in a plaza de tecnologia. I never got around to returning it or making a warranty claim.


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## MissThing (Nov 12, 2015)

*Conclusion*

Well, I said I' d share the outcome of this story, though I doubt this is so important anymore to any of the lovely folks who tried to help: I dropped my phone off at Telcel where I was told they'd fix it and they really really did. They didn't charge me one peso and they said they changed the battery and did something else. I don't know what but it works again. Looks like they even gave it a shine!

Such a happy ending. Didn't have to buy a new phone and the customer service was exceptional


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## lmontgom (Nov 16, 2016)

I found you as you wrote notes to resolve your cellphone issue Are you still in Cuernavaca? I will move there Nov. 18 and a looking for a small house to rent. But my first need is a place to store a bit of household stuff. Have you any idea where a centrally located storage room is? And lots of other questions


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## TurtleToo (Aug 23, 2013)

lmontgom said:


> I found you as you wrote notes to resolve your cellphone issue Are you still in Cuernavaca? I will move there Nov. 18 and a looking for a small house to rent. But my first need is a place to store a bit of household stuff. Have you any idea where a centrally located storage room is? And lots of other questions


Luisa, you might want to start your own thread about Cuernavaca, and ask your questions there. It would be likely to get more attention. 

.


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