Gotta love technical support (as a customer) sometimes ... This time : HP Server

On chat ...

Me: Got an HP Microserver N36L, Onboard and 3rd party Raid card fail to see drive on channel #3 (slot 4)
Me: <gives personal details, serial, product code>

< 10 minute wait >

Agent: This is for the HP Microserver, correct ?
Me: Yes

< 5 minute wait >

Agent: The drive in slot 4 fails, correct ?
Me: Yes

< 5 minute wait >

And so on ... he basically repeated every single line posted in their chat with a 5 minute break between them ...

Then I told him that since it is always the same slot, regardless of the disks or controller used, I pressume that this is related to either the backplane or the cable (latter looks 'wonky') ...

Agent: You assume it is the backplane, correct ?
Me: <head on table> Yes

<12!!! minute wait>

Agent: Please give me the part number of the backplane.
Me: You are the agent, you tell me.

< 5 minutes wait >

Agent: We send a new backplane
Me: Thanks

So far so (almost) good....

Then email received : We are sending a new motherboard as there is no backplane, please see video in how to replace it

WTH ??????????

Now thankfully that guy sent me a link with all "how to" videos in how to swap the motherboard (its on a shelf mind) ... There was a video in how to replace .. now wait for it .. the "Mini SAS assembly" ... Bingo ...

Now they are sending both, new board and cable assembly .. which pretty much makes a brand new Microserver ....(well, case and PSU is missing obviously) ...

The whole thing took two hours ... Arf ..

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Comments

N2IT

@OP

HP is terrible. We ended up using Co-Sentry to broker our calls and it cut down our time from 1-2 hours to 30 mins.

Also another thing to consider is using their online portel to place server calls. It's way faster! I would never ever place a call to HP for a server part. It was always the online portal. Way fast and more accurate.

quinnyfly

Where is HP support located these days, an X customer of mine and CEO had similar probs, he even visited a premises in Thailand or somehwere <soz can't remember exact location>, he told me that many companies were outsourcing and Asia was the new frontier in network support.

I was only 12 months into basic tech support at the time, so please excuse my ignorance, mind you, this was around 2007-2008 or so.

Patel128

I am using the same mini server for my unRaid server. Mine is working great but I don't have anything in that slot. Hopefully mines working.

N2IT

quinnyfly wrote: »

Where is HP support located these days, an X customer of mine and CEO had similar probs, he even visited a premises in Thailand or somehwere <soz can't remember exact location>, he told me that many companies were outsourcing and Asia was the new frontier in network support.

I was only 12 months into basic tech support at the time, so please excuse my ignorance, mind you, this was around 2007-2008 or so.

I'm not great with accents, but back in 2008-09 it was Thailand I believe. It was pure junk, I went straight for the portal page every time.

jibbajabba

quinnyfly wrote: »

Where is HP support located these days, an X customer of mine and CEO had similar probs, he even visited a premises in Thailand or somehwere <soz can't remember exact location>, he told me that many companies were outsourcing and Asia was the new frontier in network support.

I was only 12 months into basic tech support at the time, so please excuse my ignorance, mind you, this was around 2007-2008 or so.

The name of the agent is Indian ... obviously doesn't tell you much ... but everything is outsourced nowadays - so who knows ...

Patel128 wrote: »

I am using the same mini server for my unRaid server. Mine is working great but I don't have anything in that slot. Hopefully mines working.

I love it .. I got 4x 2TB Green Seagates in its belly connected to an Adaptec 3805 ... the other 4 channels are connected to a Supermicro Drive caddy - 4x2.5" 300GB SAS inside the 3.5" bay ...

N2IT

I just noticed you mentioned chat. My apologizes for mentioning phone.

Do you have an account set up with HP directly? If so I would contact your account manager or your procurement department and find out if they recommend a cetain way of contacting them.

If you are just contacting them through their "normal" HP warranty replacement method you will always get crap service.

ptilsen

N2IT wrote: »

Also another thing to consider is using their online portel to place server calls. It's way faster! I would never ever place a call to HP for a server part. It was always the online portal. Way fast and more accurate.

When it works. It was all errors just the other day.

HP's entire support structure is horrible. Once you get through the crap of dealing with them, the hardware is excellent and they will fix problems. We get CTRs on most servers because if there's an actual problem it's almost always cheaper than replacing the part.

That said, I haven't seen that Dell or IBM are any better, although IBM has a lot of US-based support, which is great when you actually get through.

N2IT

REMOVED UNNECESSARY QUOTED REPLY FROM PREVIOUS POST

That's why we went through Co-Sentry until we start cutting cost for the buyout. Co Sentry provided a great service. I never had problems with HP's portal, but we had a service contract set up with them. I believe a perferred customer account. We had 6 hour repair on all critical servers and 24 on non production/critical servers.

The service was great, and again if you went through the portal page it was great. I think the portal page we went through is different than the ones you are referring too. It was perfect, you filled out 12 fields and hit submit and it was over with.

IBM was the same way, they have agents in Atlanta GA and TX I believe. They provided okay service, but again their portal page was the way to go. No questions asked just drop the FRU number and a few other pieces of information and it was taken care of.

On both accounts we had account managers who would make sure the process was streamlined. It was really the only way to go about it in a large scale environment.

NightShade1

Yep the support is really bad... the support in spanish is even worst....
But really he is making you change it yourself? what type of support you got??
i mean, eveytime something is damaged i dont have to change anything they send someone to change it, i dont have to touch anything...

It also depends what agent you get.. not all of them are bad... i remenber i once contacted an agent in which he told me what was wrong in 5 mins and was we were done with the chat in 10 minutes... with all and that they would replace the damaged part... But there are others that are like lost in the space....

AT least in my country they hire noobs for that work... or for example the AS400 support is full of people that are just out of theuniversity....
I remenber i once when to an interview to work on HP as they said on the advertise they were needing Network Admins, Network Specilist, Server Admin etc...
They put me some easy AD quetions, and easy Networking questions... then on the interfview with the manager he told me that they were needing ppl for end point security and iw as like wait!!! the advertise said you were needing ppl like a Network specialist etc etc and he was like mm no we need ppl to support end poing security/antivirus on desktops... and i was like dafuq???? ah yeah and before that there was like a kid of like 20 years old that was like the sub manager and he was asking me stupid cisco questions....dunno why because the position was for antivirus support on desktops and desktop support

I just told them well if the position is not for what i came then we are done here... and said thanks and said bye and left...

I dont like that company... i mean that was a waste of my time... and this was like many hours.

Novalith478

quinnyfly wrote: »

Where is HP support located these days, an X customer of mine and CEO had similar probs, he even visited a premises in Thailand or somehwere <soz can't remember exact location>, he told me that many companies were outsourcing and Asia was the new frontier in network support.

I was only 12 months into basic tech support at the time, so please excuse my ignorance, mind you, this was around 2007-2008 or so.

It's largely in India. I have a friend who is a tech support/call center supervisor there.

rsutton

You were way too nice. I would have started complaining after the first long wait.

whatthehell

Don't know if anyone has had to deal with AT&T, but their Support is HORRIBLE.

No text messages received in 4 days, so I call support. For 4 days straight, I had to deal with a new tech who started me off with the same bloody troubleshooting steps each time, despite me telling them we have already tried that. Got escalated to a "third level tech" who called, left a message, and said everything is resolved.

I go into the store, and in 5 minutes the guy had me up and running --- lesson learned x2 --- no more At&t phone support, and going into the store from now on!

Novalith478

whatthehell wrote: »

Don't know if anyone has had to deal with AT&T, but their Support is HORRIBLE.

No text messages received in 4 days, so I call support. For 4 days straight, I had to deal with a new tech who started me off with the same bloody troubleshooting steps each time, despite me telling them we have already tried that. Got escalated to a "third level tech" who called, left a message, and said everything is resolved.

I go into the store, and in 5 minutes the guy had me up and running --- lesson learned x2 --- no more At&t phone support, and going into the store from now on!

I've found that with most mobile phone problems, taking it to the store is way easier. Phone support is just a mess usually.

Krunchi

Dude you should of got a DELL all Enterprise Support is in the US...

Lizano

If you have an HP Service Contract, HP SIM automatically opens trouble tickets when it detects something failed. If the contract info and everything is correct, the program will report to HP what type of contract it is and automatically create the ticket and the order and tracking number to ship out a replacement.

msteinhilber

I usually have good experiences with HP, though there was one bad experience where I ended up waiting around the office for 36 hours straight waiting for a system board that kept getting delayed and delayed despite having a 24x7x365 4 hour warranty. Half of that was HP's issue and the other half was the driver who was delivering the part who neglected to follow instructions and when he got to my building long after hours he figured nobody was there and turned around.

jibbajabba

rsutton wrote: »

You were way too nice. I would have started complaining after the first long wait.

Oh I wasn't - the chat was a lot longer (12 pages printed out)... At some point I even asked him whether he is still there or not and why he ignores my previously mentioned details .. His answer :"Sorry, I am still here" ... so you can get as bitchy as you want - they just ignore that fact - as they ignored all the other ones posted in that chat ...

Let's face it - they don't care. They go by their troubleshooting flow chart and move on .. When I was living in Ireland I started working for Dell .. I was supposed to work for their high level support (Platinum it was called) which included server and storage.

They then put me at a desk with someone I was supposed to shadow (mind you, I had wait for 6 month to start there as they had MCSE as requirement) .. What did the guy do ? The same thing .. flow-frikin-charts ...

I have yet to receive an answer to my question why they needed someone with a higher technical education (I was electronical engineer by trade) with some degree in IT if all you do is reading a bloody chart.

I actually walked out by lunch .. said to them that I am not doing that sort of work as every monkey can do that (and clearly do now).

I did learn a few things from being there for a few hours though ...

1. Error codes expected by an agent to perform a certain action (order part X, send out engineer etc.)
2. Email address of team leader from "key" departments dealing with certain technologies

The job I had after that had around 500 Dell Optiplex SX260 as Internet stations which failed certain components like clockwork... So having the above informations beforehand made it quite easy to get replacements without even turning on those damn things and pushing buttons dictated by the flowchart monkey ..