More tech support goodness!

[Blade_Raver]

Just got off this call a few hours ago:

Me: Blade_Raver
C: Customer

Me: (Typical intro) + How can I help you?
C: I'm a home and I can't connect to the internet.
Me: No problem, I'll help you.
(So we figure out he's using a company laptop and he's got a LinkSys wireless router and Charter internet service. We do the basics.. turn off 3rd party software, disable proxy settings, ensure wireless zero config is enabled, made sure windows is set to manage the wireless connection, and properly connect to his SSID.)

Then I had him attempt to browse -- Failed.

Then I did some ping tests, he can ping his router, unable to ping www.yahoo.com (can't even resolve it!) so I force DNS on his wireless card, go over all the internet explorer settings bit by bit. Still couldn't browse.

Just to make sure that it wasn't a bad wireless router he did verify that he has other computers on his network that can browse just fine and he was the one who set up the wireless router and it was set up as factory default.

So I'm continuing to bang my head on the desk trying to figure out what it is.. I have him reset his TCP/IP stack and reboot.. Reconnect to wireless network and browse -- still failed.

As I was about to have him powercycle router and cable modem he's like "Oh, I'm too tired, I'll deal with this another day. I'll just use my Sprint AirCard. Have a nice night!"

Frustrates me because I spent 30 mins of good time troubleshooting his issue.. I'm one of two people staffed and there could have been other calls that could have been emergency/system critical issues come in that could have went unanswered. All along this time he had a backup plan and could have decided to use it instead of call me.

At least he wasn't a prick on the phone during the whole thing...

[technical.angel]

We had a problem like that with our laptops for awhile. If we put them on the domain, they just didn't like connecting anywhere else. You had to take it off the domain and restart it twice to get all the domain settings cleared out.

Trying to get someone to do that over the phone who's already managed to kill 2 laptops...

FUN.

[HawaiianShirts]

Had a co-worker tell me a story like that the other day. Some guy called in unable to connect wirelessly to his new router. CW decided to help him out. Wired connection worked fine. Played with some settings. Test, test, test. More settings. Test. Reset. Test. All resulted in nothing. The guy kept saying that the laptop couldn't recognize the wireless signal and wasn't showing any wireless networks available. The problem? His laptop didn't have a wireless receiver. Took 20 minutes to figure that out, and he yelled at my coworker for not automatically knowing it.

At least that was a little better than the guy who tried to argue with us that ALL laptops EVER MADE came with wireless cards.