Tech Tales....

[azurelunatic]

Sometimes threats of violence do enhance a computer's performance.

You're Axing for It, Buddy!

I work for an ISP, and we got this call...

"Hello, Tech Support, can I help you?"

"Yeah, this thing won't connect."

"Is it Windows 95?"

"Yes."

"What error message did you get when trying to connect?"

"Incompatible set of Network Protocols, I believe,"

"Great. That should be an easy one to fix..."

Oh, how little we know. Our standard procedure for fixing that particular error was to reinstall Dial-Up Networking, reconfigure the TCP/IP stack, and go. 99 percent of the time, it works. Not today.

I ended up reinstalling DUN about four times, and each time, I would get the same error message as before.

"OK, sir, let's try this."

"What, another one?"

"Yes, sir." I took him to the connection properties for his DUN connectoid.

"OK, sir, let's try and slow it down, maybe we can get the equipment to connect at a lower speed."

"Sound pretty good, let's try it."

45 minutes and ten call-backs (the guy only had one phone line, so I had to hang up in between each try) later, we had set his modem to 9600, no data compression, no error control, terminal window upon login, no flow control, no FIFO buffers, no ANYTHING. And still, the same message again and again. I was pretty frustrated, and so was my customer. I mumbled,

"Sir, do you have a chainsaw or an axe handy?"

"Yes, I do, in fact. Do you think that might help?"

"OK, here's what you do. We'll set all the settings back the way they were when we started, you go get the axe and threaten the computer after we hang up. Make them good ones, ones that would scare Saddam Hussein into a quivering puddle of Jell-O."

"I can do that; I used to be a DI in the Army."

"Great. Let's give it a shot."

We set his DUN settings back to normal, he got the axe. We hung up, he evidently said some nasty things to his machine after he rebooted it, and lo and behold, it worked. He connected at full speed, no problems. He called back about ten minutes later after disconnecting.

"Sir?" I said, "Did it work?"

"Perfectly. I've never seen faster Internet service. Thanks for the tip, I'll keep that one in mind."

"Glad we could help sir," and then we hung up. Then I fell down on the floor laughing. :)

From Tech Tales, link from godai

Comments

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

The other day at work, I was working on something when someone called me over to fix a computer problem. I was doing a couple things at once, so I excused myself from the first thing with "excuse me, I have to go look at this computer threateningly."

I wandered over and looked at the computer threateningly. The problem disappeared.

"Thanks," the person said. I went back to my other work.

[azurelunatic]

Heh. Heh.

There are days like that, eh?

[azurelunatic]

Grr. Stupid LJ is being stupid.

There *are* days like that.

[musyc]

Hah! I had to do that at work once. Closing people couldn't get the system to shut down, so they called, woke me up, and asked me to come help. I got there after they'd been trying for over half an hour. I put my hand on the monitor, and said "Carol's here. Do it."

System shut down immediately. Muahaha.

[azurelunatic]

Let's hear it for the Angry White Girl™!

[musyc]

Thank you, thank you. *bows* I'm here all week.