One of the burdens us IT folks have to bear is that everyone invariably knows you “work in IT”, and so expect that you can fix any of their computer problems.
Over the years I have had countless requests to, “fix this…”, or “stop it from…”, or “tell me why it doesn’t…”, or “show me how to…”, etc., with varying degrees of success. What escapes most folks is that, like probably 95%+ of the people that “work in IT”, I’m not a PC hardware engineer. OK, I do use a PC a lot and it’s an interest for me, but it’s not really my field, it’s merely a tool I use as a means to an end.
The best analogy that springs to mind is making an assumption that anyone who drives a car can fix anything that goes wrong with it. Oh well, that’s the AA, RAC, etc. and all the garages out of business then…
I’d like to stress here, I really don’t mind (no really, I don’t) trying to help out, but I find myself more and more having to caveat my best intentions of assistance with, “I’m not promising anything…”, to try and pre-set the expectations. There are so many combinations of hardware out there and potential pitfalls, and well, as I said before, I’m not a PC hardware engineer and while I can live with busting my own PC and then spending hours fixing it, it’s not great doing that to someone else’s.
I’m on old fashioned BT ADSL kinda guy, using a Belkin wireless router/modem. It works fine for me and was indeed an out-of-the-box, minimal config experience to set up. So getting my Auntie’s Sky wireless capability working a few weeks ago was a breeze, it took literally 5 minutes.
My latest endeavour yesterday however was to try to help a friend out with getting his brand new Tosh laptop connected wirelessly to his NTL cable broadband. A seemingly simple task, especially in this age of out-of-the-box, plug-n-play and all that. But alas, as it turned out, all was not necessarily what it seemed.
My mate had purchased a wireless router and already had a go at getting it working with no joy. So we’re trying to get: Toshiba laptop -(wireless to)-> Wireless Router -(wired to)-> NTL Cable Modem -(wired to)-> Internet – easy! Or so you’d think.
Problem #1
The NTL modem has a both a USB and ethernet port in the back. The main desktop machine is connected to it using the USB port and the wireless router by ethernet cable. Unbeknownst to me these ports work as either/or and don’t work together, which cost a bit of time and scratching of head. Maybe the rest of the civilised world knew this, but hey…
So now the whole thing worked if it was wired; the Tosh could surf via the router. In true ‘Karate Kid’ style; wire-in (works), wire-out (nada). Next problem…
Problem #2
The Tosh has a physical wireless switch and a wee light telling you it’s on. So why no connection? On further investigation, there’s no wireless icon in the system tray, so there’s no wireless activity – how could that be? It’s a brand new Vista laptop, it must work! Searching for a wireless adaptor in the device manager proved fruitless too. So called the ‘free’ (ie. 5p a minute) helpline to find it’s a “known problem” and was prompted to install the wireless adapter from the hard drive. No note in the box explaining this. Tsk, tsk, Tosh.
It’s now wireless and I know it can connect to the router wirelessly, ‘cos I can access the router control panel. But it won’t go online. Huh? Still works with a wire tho.
Time for a search on the web, looks like lots of noise about lots of folks not being able to get this to work. Also, lots of advice about being careful to boot each component, and let settle, in order or it won’t work. It was getting late, so giving up was the only option…
So, for now, it’s wired or nothing.
Grrr. I hate when that happens.
With some post-event searching, it looks like there may be some MAC locking stuff between the ntl modem and network, so shenannigans required I guess to make NTL reconise the router as it’s new, authorised MAC.
