A tech support incident at work today

[Lantyssa]

I would have said, "Okie, it's plugged in and just crashed two million dollar machines.  Can I get an RMA number now?  And where should I send the repair bill?"

[Ironwood]

Yeah, fuck scripts.

When Dell tell me to 'plug it into another keyboard', or 'plug it into a different monitor' or, 'plug it into your mother's vagina', I just pause for a minute and then say 'Yup, did that, no change.'


My mum was well upset tho.

[Oban]

Wait, she was upset that you did not plug it in?

[Ironwood]

She doesn't get out very much anymore.


(Seriously, what does that colour denote anyway ?)

[Oban]

Well, if green symbolizes sarcasm then maroon must symbolize shocked incredulity.

[Murgos]

Well, if green symbolizes sarcasm then maroon must symbolize shocked incredulity.

Well.  Obviously.

[Big Gulp]

Yeah, RAID.  It's supposed to be redundant.  Sorry to hear it.

To be honest, I've never seen this problem before. 

I've thought for a while about going with RAID, but I always rethink it because the idea of one drive failing throwing everything into chaos terrifies me.  I tend to go with three drives, one of which is small but fast, and I use that as solely my OS/Utility drive.  The other drives are dedicated to video & audio on one, and games & downloads on the other.

It's not as good as RAID, but then I'm comfortable knowing that one point of failure doesn't destroy everything.

[Selby]

It's not as good as RAID, but then I'm comfortable knowing that one point of failure doesn't destroy everything.

I agree.  After I had a RAID array die due to 1 disk going out at work back when I used to be a network admin, trying to recover the data from the others in the array was so much fun I decided that the benefits of RAID outweigh the hassles of the occasions when you compare the two (having a douchebag for a boss's boss who insists it get done THAT DAY but you aren't allowed to put down any overtime for it didn't help matters either).  I went back to single drives with a tape backup system and never looked back.

[Engels]

I think it really depends on the type of raid you get. I've had one raid system that automatically detected a new drive and offered to join it to a pre-existing raid5 array. That was awsome. Other raid systems, not so much.

It also depends on wht type of IT department you're in. If you're like me and have an under funded department with a parsimonious and largely ignorant boss, you don't want raid, simply because if you leave, and she hires someone from the Geek Squad to replace you, they ain't gonna know shit about redoing an array.

If on the other hand you have a larger IT department that's got several competent hardware personel on staff, raid 5 can be the right solution, provided everyone has taken the time to be familiar with it.

[Samwise]

It depends on what you're using it for too.  RAID 5 is very robust but very slow, so it's a poor choice for high-performance applications.  RAID 0 is speedy, but it has zero redundancy so if you lose one disk you lose the entire array.  RAID 1+0 is a good mix, since it gives most of the performance benefit of RAID 0 but it can also survive a disk failure.

[Righ]

RAID 5 is very robust but very slow, so it's a poor choice for high-performance applications.

Very slow? In software perhaps. A modern hardware RAID controller won't deliver what I'd call "very slow" performance. Array rebuilds excepted.

[Samwise]

"Very slow" may be too strong a term if you're talking about the best case scenario.  Even with a hardware implementation, though, maintaining the parity information gives you an unavoidable and non-negligible performance hit on every write.  Reads not so much, so again, depends on what you're using it for.

[Big Gulp]

It also depends on wht type of IT department you're in. If you're like me and have an under funded department with a parsimonious and largely ignorant boss, you don't want raid, simply because if you leave, and she hires someone from the Geek Squad to replace you, they ain't gonna know shit about redoing an array.

I'd say that's an advantage of RAID...  Doesn't everyone want to be indispensable?

[Roac]

I'd say that's an advantage of RAID...  Doesn't everyone want to be indispensable?

No.  Then I can't be promoted.

[Engels]

Bingo. Or leave to another job with the blessing of your boss.

[Yegolev]

Blessing?  What?  Is that a Scottish thing?

[Ironwood]

In the IT sector, you should always be so competant that you ALWAYS leave with the blessing of your boss.  This is due to the fact that he KNOWS that there'll be a tick box or a setting or something that your successor won't know and will require a polite phone call to you to fix.

If the boss is a classless act, you hang up when he calls.

[sinij]

In the IT sector, you should always be so competant that you ALWAYS leave with the blessing of your boss.  This is due to the fact that he KNOWS that there'll be a tick box or a setting or something that your successor won't know and will require a polite phone call to you to fix.

If the boss is a classless act, you hang up when he calls.

Head a pleasure of doing it before. Will pay money to do it again, its that good.

[Ironwood]

If you're getting head at your work from your boss, there's summat wrong.

[sinij]

It was MM pre coffee post...

[Yegolev]

If you're getting head at your work from your boss, there's summat wrong.

Let's not be sexist, now.  I know of several female managers.  However, none of them make me happy in the pants, but I guess everyone has their fetish.

[Ironwood]

?

Sexist ?  Even if your boss is female, it's wrong....

[Yegolev]

I never know if you are serious or not.

[Ironwood]

Alas, all too serious.  Which was why I agreed with Roac in some retarded thread or other that Clinton Doing Monica was Bad.

Don't fuck work colleagues in any way shape or form.  I did.

I'm now married.

Be warned.

[Yegolev]

Next time I'm in Glasgow, I'm buying you a round.

[Kitsune]

My favorites are when the IT guys install software upgrades for a program they don't use, have no idea how to support and really haven't clue one about other than "you draw stuff with it."(AutoCad)

Frankly, it's not the IT guy's job to know every piece of software unless it's something that's critical and company-wide.  Dealing with the OS and normal computer/network foibles alone is enough to give someone a full plate, and companies aren't usually in a hurry to issue copies of multi-hundred-dollar software out to their IT guys to use and become familiar with.  If I was faced with AutoCAD, I'd toss in the CD, tell it to install, and if something fucked up, would search for the problem on their site and on Google.  If that provided no answers, I'd call their tech support.  I can't possibly learn every application-specific glitch on the market and fix everyone's computer like Scotty.  I can guarantee that the desktop is working, the server is working, and the network is working.  Anything beyond that I can promise my best effort, but no guarantees.

I've never before seen a Recovery Console or a Fresh Installation FROM CD blue screen.  That's almost worth the price of admission.

That sets my diagnosis sense to tingling.  Whenever a CD-boot bluescreens, that points to a hardware failure.  Check the memory, processor, and motherboard.  Something may have blown on there that's making it look like the hard drives are fucking up, when in reality it's another part that's causing the problem.

[Selby]

I can't possibly learn every application-specific glitch on the market and fix everyone's computer like Scotty.

I was expected to in my previous IT life.  We locked everyone's accounts down in the main computer lab to stop people from installing games and virii that would try and crash the network.  Unfortunately things like AutoCAD and other expensive high-end civil engineering software packages did NOT like being run as a guest.  I had to spend a few days hunting down registry settings and file\directory settings and specifically granting certain permissions before the software would work.  The software's tech support was great as their answer consisted of "just run it as an administrator."  Yeah.  In a lab with 10 computers that saw 30 people moving in and out of it every day.  No thanks.

As much as I would have loved to say "sorry, I just maintain the OS and the network" the professors in charge of the funding told everyone that I was expendable and could easily be replaced (technically true, idiots with a pulse are easy to come by but that doesn't guarantee your problems are fixed).  And it did give me something to do in between surfing various web boards all day...

[Merusk]

When the app is central to your buisiness doing ANYTHING, you should probably know the software.   AutoCAD doesn't work, no houses are drawn, no prints can be run and we can't even access standard plans.  That's kind of problematic when all you're doing is building houses.  So yes, it's kind of critical.  Outside of Office 97 and the Crystal Reports stuff it's the only company-critical software.

Instead of having one guy trained and knowing what to do, they hire programmers to code timecard & workflow software.   If any of us who already KNOW what to do suggest that; perhaps we should install & maintain the software instead, we're told no, it's IT's job and they're not going to give us the ability to.

[Triforcer]

I'm a political science major in law school.  I believe that computers were built by good wizards and that problems are caused by evil wizards.  If you are in tech support in any way, you should be able to detect the evil magic and fix it INSTANTLY.  That is all.   

[Yegolev]

Evil magic is spun by evil wizards.  See SAP, AG and Oracle, Inc.

[bhodi]

I think everyone knows that computers run on magic blue smoke. If for some reason you let the blue smoke escape, through damage or misuse, your computer will no longer work.

[Mortriden]

Evil magic is spun by evil wizards.  See SAP, AG and Oracle, Inc.

I second this... SAP is the devil's tool.

[Furiously]

Evil magic is spun by evil wizards.  See SAP, AG and Oracle, Inc.

I second this... SAP is the devil's tool.

I refuse to group with rogues without improved sap.

[Bunk]

I think everyone knows that computers run on magic blue smoke. If for some reason you let the blue smoke escape, through damage or misuse, your computer will no longer work.

Thank you for that. It brings back great memories of the department manager grabbing the wrong leads off the power supply and putting 112V in to a 12V weight meter. I still love the smell of the magic blue smoke.

[Polysorbate80]

Ah, memories.  Power supply on one of the station's VTRs goes bad, engineer's assistant doesn't have time to repair the power supply so he grabs a spare and swaps it in.  Connects it backwards--*poof*.

He yanks it out, goes and gets the other spare power supply.  Hooks THAT one up backwards too.  Naturally, same results.

Winds up fixing the original power supply after all.