As some of you know, I'm a computer technician. I write code, I parse data, I build and support networks and all sorts of computer things including industrial lasers and other things. I've done it since about 1984. I'm real good at it and I do it for a living.

 

I rarely contact technical support for things, mostly only on very difficult and persistent problems, usually related to servers and things like raid arrays that won't mount or whatever.

 

On more than one occasion, I've alerted manufacturers to bugs in their hardware drivers and in one case about 10 years ago, re-wrote a sample driver for Compaq to show them how to mount tape drive properly in Netware. When I run across things that seem like I should notify the manufacturer, I will drop them a note.

 

I was in Germany last week and the wife told me that the internet was out. Besides the fact that the internet is NEVER down, and she meant she couldn't connect to it, she called our ISP and the guy correctly deduced that the router wasn't functioning properly. Unplug, reset factory defaults and a few other things and it's kaput. I had her go through the same stuff and when I got home, sure enough, the router wasn't routing packets. I could get to the config pages, but it wouldn't route out to the ISP. I put in my old linksys router and it worked. I brought the problem router to work and it functioned just fine.

 

Back home...no good. I then remembered that I hadn't disabled the two wireless devices in the house. Once I did that...boom, everything is fine. It turns out it was my relatively new Canon MP-560 which is connected wirelessly. It apparently went bonked and flooded the local segment and choked out the router.

 

I sent Canon a tech support note

INQUIRY:

Canon Mp560 using Wifi

Recently, my home internet connection went out. All 4 computers

couldn't communicate across the network. The lights on the router were

blinking furiously. I replaced my router with a backup with no

wireless and everything was fine. I took the "problem" router to a

different location and it was also fine. I got home, powered off the

Canon MP560 and the connection resumed normally with the "problem"

router. Somehow the printer was DOSing the router. It's a Dlink

Dir-655. Once the printer was restarted, everything has worked

normally since. Is there a firmware update I should apply to this

printer to prevent another packet flood like this?

 

And this is what I got back...

 

Thank you for writing to us regarding your PIXMA MP560. We value you as

a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We

regret to hear that you are experiencing difficulties with your PIXMA

MP560.

 

Uninstalling and reinstalling the printer should resolve this issue. To

do this, please disconnect the USB cable from the PIXMA MP560 and follow

these steps:............(tons of instructions followed

 

WAY TO READ THE PROBLEM A$$H0LE!!!!!

 

A machine that doesn't have the frickin driver installed STILL CAN'T GET OUT BECAUSE YOUR FRICKIN PRINTER IS SLAMMING THE LOCAL SEGMENT D-BAG!!!!

 

I unplugged both computers with the driver installed, only plugged in my laptop and it wouldn't route. How is re-installing a printer driver that was never installed in the first place supposed to fix that dipshiznit?

 

*Sigh*

I have had similar problems with tech support. I concluded that they must pull out key words from your e-mail and send a generic response that most closely applies to those key words. Most of the time the response has nothing to do with the question. You can always call and get a generic response read to you by a kid in India with a response flip book. :doh:

You over estimate the ability of people. My co-worker (who I graduated college with, in the same senior class).. who has the same networking degree that I do.. cannot ping Google. Nor can he, when working from home, determine if he is connected to the internet or not (even though his cable and phone were also out).

 

He's also the one who bought the brand new V6 automatic Camaro. :?

 

He couldn't remember how to spell "Ethernet", doesn't understand what a packet is, and once he does anything that involves reading more than 1 sentence of technical information, gets the "deer in headlights" look.

 

And this is a guy who is making decent money as an engineer.

 

You expect the help desk guys making $10/hr to be able to help you, or even understand your message?

We pay $25k per yar support for our ERP system and 99.9% of the time I have to tell them how to fix it.