Strong Wi-Fi. Happy wife. Happy life. How ChatGPT helped me fix our home internet.

My wife's Zoom calls kept cutting out during important meetings. So I found an old Cat 6 Ethernet cable in our data closet and decided to connect her laptop directly to the internet. But there was one problem: the cable had a bare, cut end, and I had no idea how to attach an Ethernet plug to it.

So I did what I do these days when I don't know how to do something: I asked ChatGPT.

I sent it photos as I worked. It told me which tools to buy, explained how to remove the cable's outer covering, showed me how to put the eight tiny wires in the correct order, and even made small diagrams when words weren't enough. When I got frustrated, it encouraged me to keep going.

My first try only gave me about 100 Mbps, even though our internet connection can reach 1 Gbps. ChatGPT suspected that two of the wires weren't working properly. It suggested buying a cheap cable tester, explained what the flashing lights in my photo meant, and confirmed the problem. I cut off the plug and tried again using a simpler plug that it recommended.

The result? About 850 Mbps.

My only complaint was that ChatGPT sometimes went off on a tangent and gave me advice that was much more complicated than I needed. I'd remind it that I wasn't rewiring Silicon Valley. I just wanted my wife's Zoom calls to stop cutting out.

So far, her video calls have worked perfectly. Without ChatGPT, I don't think I could have done it.