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Just thought maybe I'd give some of you a laugh.. For the last 4 days my schools network has been down(I attend a medium size Christian School) No one has been able to connect to networked drives and such. Also randomly one by one computers were losing access to the net. Normally the teachers will ask me for help, but they didnt even ask and just called a so-called "professional" network manager/tech guy from a computer shop across town. Well he spent 5 HOURS and supposedly couldnt get it to work, he felt that all the NIC cards had burnt out in all the PC's. He was going to order all new ones and replace them(at quite an expense to the school obviously)..he said he would have to charge 5 more hours to install and update the pc's....Well that was Friday, today(Monday) I go into the office and they were asking about backing up files onto disks..etc... And I said, "hey mind if I try something?, I dont think that guy knew what he was doing"...Principal said "Sure" I walk in, reset the router...bingo...all systems go...all access restored...hahahaha... The teachers are going to be giving me the check that they were going to pay the repairman for his 5+ hours he wasted...They plan on calling him tomorrow and letting him know how dissapointed they are... ...I love being able to work on computers....

Something to bear in mind is that the tech guy might not have been thinking clearly, as he would have been under a lot of pressure, and missed the obvious things, seeing as others would have been watching him like a hawk. It is a whole lot easier when you have nothing to prove and others aren't expecting much from you. In such circumstances your mind is calm and you can think clearly and won't miss the obvious things. He could also have been trying it on to generate more business by selling new hardware. Alternatively, the shop may have sent the cleaner round (telling him it was an easy job) if the other tech staff were busy (though I don't believe that one myself).

There is no way that anyone can believe that all the NIC cards in all the PCs could have all died at the same time (ok, maybe if there was a lightning strike on an unprotected network).

Regardless, you certainly came away looking like a pro, so well done to you. Just don't be so quick to judge others so harshly, unless they have a track record of screwing up, or screwing their customers, on a regular basis.

Could be.

On the other hand, the world seems full of "technicians" and "engineers" that don't seem to have a Scooby Doo!

Trust me, I work with some of them. Its painful to watch.

Yes, he was missing alot. He should have been CISCO certified at least... I mean in the CISCO course the OSI Model is stressed like crazy.

Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data Link
Physical

Start from the bottom and work your way up to the solution. Routers would be layer 3, or the "network" layer... what a dork.....

For a problem that was affecting all the network connections on all the PCs, the router would have been the first place to look. If the guy was CISCO certified, then he wouldn't be working in a shop, as he would earn a lot more money elsewhere. He probably wouldn't have been that hot in terms of tech knowledge, but should certainly have known enough to pick up on these types of problems.

Or he could say that the NICs would need replacing so he could make some cash from a school...... and you know how people from school are... lazy idiots...

Exactly. That sort of thing happens a lot in other trades, so why not IT?

It would have been better if the school went through with it, bought all new NICs, and it still didn't work...

But good job to you vassil3427. How much was the check worth and what are you spending it on?

I would love for that to happen at my school. But we have a guy who knows his stuff, from what I've seen. My school's mail, WWW and DFS servers are all Mac... Only Windows servers are DHCP & DNS I think...I haven't really looked into it but I've been to the server room, where there's about 4 or 5 G4 or somethin' Macs in a row with sticky notes saying "Mail 1" "Mail 2" "File" blah blah. The smart guy isn't involved with that, he's an IT teacher.

One of the other guys also controls my ISP. As of now, ALL of my ports are blocked besides the port FirstClass (mail) uses, HTTP, FTP, and a couple others. I can't use IRC, IM, or P2P programs at the moment. Plus there's a content filter (read: censorship) that blocks sites like www.raisethefist.com and www.che-lives.org

I'm done w/ my rant. vassil3427 is the one that got his 15 minutes of fame.

P.S. I'm running a Port Scanner built into my Invision script right now, I'd like to know exactly what's open...

lol, ahh Vehementi, I always like reading your posts... Not sure of the exact amount of the check..but from what the teacher told me, he was being paid $75 and hour..lol...75 x 5 = $375...Not too shabby for a flick of the wrist, and 30 seconds of my time...

At this point I am torn between what to purchase, I already have $250 saved up...with the extra $$ I will either do some upgrades or buy a new Pocket PC...I am on the road alot with my parents, and I'll be able to convert DVD's to Divx and take them with me...also all my MP3 files...not to mention Solitaire..ooo and even wifi..... ...

what do you think?
My current Specs:
Athlon XP 1800+
100GB WD SE
Ti4600
SD Audigy

Seems like she's do for a makeover...

Pity you don't have enough money for a nice laptop That would be my immediate choice.

I would say go for an upgrade, but a serious one. Don't upgrade your 1800+ to like 2800+ or something unless you're building a 2nd machine. Keep your hard drive, I don't even need 120GB! Even though you probably have like 49804769827436k T3 and I'm still stuck at 21.6k (read my previous post about the guy who controls my internet...) and thus download 92376926x as much stuff as I do...but still :P
Get new speakers! They're always a good investment (well maybe not good investment, because once you turn them on they're worth less...but you know what I mean). You could get quite a nice home theater speaker setup for your computer, and be able to watch DVDs with Dolby Digital and DTS love, with $600 some. If you got that route stick with 5.1, you don't have enough money for 6.1 or 7.1...

For DVDs on your Pocket PC, it might just be me but I couldn't stand watching a movie with a 3x3 screen, headphones, and in a car speeding down an interstate. Plus DivX DVD rips are generally big (mine are around 500M a pop) and would suck up that puny hard drive/Flash drive pretty quick. MP3's are another issue if you have a nice pair of headphones (I would personally reccomend Sennheiser HD500's or any other in the HD series), I think they would be nice.
Don't forget about PocketDOOM

[Devil's Advocate]Or you could buy an iPod.[/Devil's Advocate]

I'm surprised you like my posts Most of the longer ones are disjointed and sloppy, like this one...

lol, actually I can convert the Dvd's down to 220 mb's a piece while retaining dvd quality at 320x 240(size of PPC screens)...

and I have Cable internet and can get up to 1.7mbs downstream....hehe...

And I've only used at max 17Gb of my 100GB...so no prob there...

Dont need new speakers already have creative 4.1(not the greatest but I have it hooked to my audio output on my tv, the tv is the center channel, sounds great during movies...)

I'd consider an Ipod but I dont have nearly enough songs to justify that....

What do you think of getting the following:

450w Antec P.S.
New case
512mb Crucial PC3200


Maybe a new mobo with Athlon XP 2800+?? Or should I wait for the Athlon 64's to come down in price??

By all means wait for the Athlon 64 or the next gen chip if you're interested.

Are you having any problems with your current power supply? If you want a new case because your current one is just a beige box, that's fine, that's exactly what I did (), but I dunno about your PSU since most good cases don't come with one & your probably better off using your old one, if nothing's wrong with it (underpowered maybe?).
And what's up with your RAM?

You can really spend this money on anything you'd like. But I think your machine will be ripe for upgrade when the next-gen Athlon 64's come out. Or maybe Intel will have something decent in the 64bit line, either one. My last upgrade was from a P3 558MHz (OCed) to this, and my next will probably be Christmas of next year or maybe my birthday, or some time I get money...If the Athlon 64's are considered "good" then, then I'll get probably a very - high end one.

Thanks Veh! I think you are right...I'll just get the Pocket PC I'm going to get the Dell Axim X3w/integrated wifi and a 256mb SD card, along with a leather case and travel kit. And in 4 or 5 months I'll upgrade my pc....

Oh and my P.S. is a piece of junk, kinda scares me, its a 300w cheap one that came with case...had the last cheap one blow a capacitor...its probably only a matter of time before this one does....I had a nice 400w antec..but my parents P.S. went out in there PC and I gave it up, never got around to buying a new one for myself just used an old one I had laying around...

And I only have 384mb of DDR

Your parent's piece of junk has a 400W Antec in it and you're still stuck with a generic 300W? Switch 'em out man! The power supply is a major part of your computer, whether you like it or not, one of the most important to be high quality. My old PSU was a Raidmax piece of junk, it went out on me, and from now on I'm not buying anything other than Enermax, Antec, etc. PSUs.