Hey everyone! I'm in a bit of a pickle with my PC and hoping you can help. Out of nowhere, my internet connection just dropped, but everything else seems fine. Here's what happened:
I was working as usual on my Debian 12 setup, with a bunch of Firefox windows and terminal sessions for my homelab. Then, without warning, my machine became unresponsive – the fan kicked into high gear, the screen froze, and I had to restart it.
After the restart, I found I could still connect to my internal network and access my homelab via SSH, but no internet access at all. Oddly, I did manage to connect to my VPN and surf the web while that was active, but once I disconnected, the internet vanished again. A second reboot rendered even the VPN useless.
What's more frustrating is that other devices on the same network are working without issues, and I can even access the internet through a Windows VM running on the same Debian host.
Everything was running smoothly until this happened, and I'm scratching my head. Could this be one of those cosmic rays flipping config bits? Any advice on what I should check or how to fix this would be greatly appreciated!
2 Answers
Before you go reinstalling everything, try checking your network settings and configuration files for any weirdness. If they got flipped or corrupted due to a hardware issue, you might be able to fix it with some tweaks. Be sure to back everything up just in case.
It sounds like you might be dealing with failing hardware, particularly an SSD. Early SSDs sometimes had controller problems that could mess with the data, causing issues like this. If you think cosmic rays are to blame, a good next step might be to reinstall your OS, but be aware that if the SSD is on its way out, you might face similar issues down the line. Just something to consider!
Yeah, I agree. It’s important to check the health of your SSD. You could run some diagnostics on it to see if there are any signs of wear or failure.