A customer I felt bad for

[TNT]

Usually when a customer can't connect to the internet, they call me first. Flames could be coming out of their computer, and they'll call wanting to know why our internet's down.

And then there's this guy... not sucky... not really unsupportable... I just don't know where else to put him.

The call came around six pm...

Caller: I've been constantly on the phone since 10 o'clock this morning. You're the fifth person I've called. I get "Page cannot be displayed" in Internet Explorer. So, I called Microsoft. They couldn't help me, so they told me to call Dell. After two hours on the phone with them, they said they couldn't help and advised me to call Symantec. They worked with me, and eventually told me to call Linksys. After they did some stuff, they had me remove the router and I still can't connect. So they told me to call you.
Me: On your modem... is the "online" light blinking or solid?
Caller: Blinking.
Me: You're in standby mode. Press the button on the top of the modem. You'll be fine.

[technical.angel]

Page can not be displayed, and it took Linksys to tell him to call his ISP??? Gah.

[trunks2k]

Damn. Talk about crap tech support. I can kinda understand microsoft passing the buck off to someone else as I don't think they really supply first teir support. But what the heck did Dell spend two hours doing with the guy?

I'm betting it went something like this:

1. MS passes the guy off to Dell, because MS (I suspect) doesn't really offer that type of support.
2. Dell guy, assumes that because they talked to MS, they checked the most basic things, and spends time trying the more difficult solutions. Can't figure it out and passes diagnoses it as a firewall problem, call Symmantec.
3. Symmantec guy figures that since the guy has already talked to MS and Dell, the basics have already been covered, and focuses specifically on Symmantec issues. Can't figure it out and passes it on to linksys.
4. Linksys gets the call and goes checks the basic router stuff and ensures the router itself is working, and sees it's clearly an ISP problem. "WTF? Why are you calling us? Call your ISP." And I can't blame linksys for passing the buck to the ISP, as they don't necessarily know how the internet connection is set up.

So I blame the whole thing on the Dell guy. The Dell guy should have directed your customer to the ISP.

When I did tech support and people had connection problems, I didn't care who they had talked to before me, or what they did previously, my first step was to always reset everything.

[tollbaby]

It sounds like the problem was that everyone assumed he'd ALREADY been in touch with his ISP.

[BravoOrig]

Irony, as alot of times the ISP is the first line a customer calls for any computer related issue, and those same companies pass the wrong stuff onto us. We've all been bitten by the standby button.

[ShockQueen]

Kinda , but I just keep wondering who on earth thought it was a good idea to put a "standby" button on modems. I mean...if parents really don't want their kids online, it's just as easy to disconnect the modem and lock it away, and if they're worried about getting hacked, then get a freakin' firewall, encrypt your router, and don't worry about it if the computer is OFF!

I think Standby buttons have become the bane of many an ISP's existence.

[trunks2k]

Kinda , but I just keep wondering who on earth thought it was a good idea to put a "standby" button on modems.

My guess is that the standby button makes the modem use less power, and essentially disconnect itself from the network, but keep its entry in the DHCP table. So that way when you turn it back on, it takes less time to re-connect and all the settings are the same. This could be a useful feature for some users. Just my guess though as I have never actually used the standby button.

[Gurndigarn]

Damn. Talk about crap tech support. I can kinda understand microsoft passing the buck off to someone else as I don't think they really supply first teir support. But what the heck did Dell spend two hours doing with the guy?

It took him an hour and a half to get through their que, then another ten minutes with the guy verifying his serial number... not the guy's fault: he couldn't understand the thick indian accent. Then twenty minutes of half-assed "help" that could have been shrunk down to three minutes if only Dell shelled out for competent people rather than the absolute cheapest labor they could find. Plus accent problems on top of it.

No, I don't like Dell. How did you tell?

[Geek King]

... and if they're worried about getting hacked, then get a freakin' firewall, encrypt your router, and don't worry about it if the computer is OFF!

I have had arguments lasting more than a half hour with people who insist that a hacker can turn on a computer that has been turned off. Maybe I should terrorize people with my almighty hacking powers from back in the early days of the interweb. In the more...er...curious days of my youth, there were many, many fee-based websites that could be snuck into by figuring out what the interior pages were. The you could just go straight to those pages. Most folks have worked out better security these days though. It does serve as a good basic test for website security, though.

[LostMyMind]

I have had arguments lasting more than a half hour with people who insist that a hacker can turn on a computer that has been turned off.

well, that is actually based on some truth. For a short time, there was a security hole, that allowed for remote turn on of a computer (which still exist for corp I.T., they can turn it back on).

Some network cards have a remote turn on feature. This was a way for the lazy I.T. people to turn on computers on their network from a remote site and do their patches/updates/etc.... However, now days this feature is defaulted to off. And most I.T. people understand how this is a big security problem, so they just ask the computer users to leave the computer on when they plan an mass update.