Duh Moments

We all have them, working on a computer problem for a time and it finally dawns on you that it is something simple you overlooked. Had one yesterday...

User comes to me and says his laptop made a very loud beeping noise. I turn it on and there is no noise, but did see a message about the OS recovering from a serious error. Play with it a bit and let's just say the laptop was having issues. So he goes on another PC and I get to work on giving him a new laptop. An hour later the laptop is ready and I go to take it downstairs. I should note two things about the laptop while I was setting it up. First, the tab key was sticking. I tapped it a bunch of times and that appeared to correct that issue. Second, after doing updates it did a safe file scan at boot up. I started it and shut it down a bunch of times to be sure there wasn't any issue.

I go downstairs, setup the dock, and dock the laptop. Start it up and it goes into boot select menu on it's own. WTF? I escape out and it asks me to select the OS. Great. It boots up to Windows 7 without issue, so I shut it down and bring it back up. Same thing, right into the boot select menu. I finish the start up and open the laptop to see if maybe the Think key is somehow pressed it, it wasn't. I shutdown, dedock the laptop, and start it again. It boots up to Windows 7 without entering the boot select menu. At this point I am beyond mad about what is happening. Dock it and it enters the boot select menu again. Finally, I pull the keyboard out a bit more (external one connected to the dock) and realize what happened. The F12 key was pushed in when in the tray, thus the boot menu issue. And of course as I'm typing this I realize the because the F12 key was pressed it, that was the cause of the loud beep, the Chrome issue, and the Outlook save as box coming up. DDDUUUHHH!

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Comments

cgrimaldo

lol...when I have those moments, i always smirk to myself and remember that not every issue has to be that complicated just because I couldn't figure it out the first time....

lsud00d

I think the universal answer is check the time

the_Grinch

It's funny because I went to the user to let them know and he said "oh good, it started happening again." So thankfully I at least figured it out so I could have an answer for him.

Kreken

Configuring new IPsec VPN and during testing, I ping a remote server. The tunnel comes, I see encaps but no decaps. Start troubleshooting the VPN... After going back over the config multiple times, I ask to check the server. It had Windows firewall on which blocked all ICMP packets. An hour wasted.

Spending a couple of days trying to make Anyconnect client work from the inside of CSD. Opened a support ticket with Cisco just for a tech to point it out to me in the release notes it is not supported...

Working on the remote server 90 miles away and deciding to upgrade firmware through iLO prior to installing OS. I loaded .iso image of Smart Update and didn't realize it will update ALL firmware including iLO... Unplanned visit to the remote data center.

Testing my IPS configuration from home with Metasploit and blocking myself out.

I'll add more when I remember them.

QHalo

This is why keyboard trays should be destroyed. I can't count how many times I've seen this happen. Had the same thing happen when someone had a keyboard with the cable strewn out on the desk and it was laying on top of a key.

log32

keyboard problems are always the hardest to identify since it's the last thing that comes to mind as problematic.
I remember I used to work at a call center and there was this lady who called and said that everytime she types the window randomly minimizes to the desktop, but only when shes using her keyboard.
so I asked to her to open notepad and type "d" letter and then it minimizes, voila! the WIN key was stuck, lol

QHalo

Could have had her press the L key to see if it locks her PC too

log32

or E to get my computer window pop up

boredgamelad

Not a duh moment for me but I was on the other end of one today. Customer called complaining that they couldn't ping a specific IP from the public interface on their server. It's the only external IP they hit with this particular interface and this has been going on since last Thursday. I double check to make sure they haven't had any recent changes pushed out. Nothing since... September. They ask me to jump on the firewall and see if I can figure out what's going on, but I'm already suspicious this isn't the firewall's fault.

First step, I get some more information--where are they going, coming from, what service, etc. (this buys me time to go through our convoluted login process without making the customer wait as well). I also ask them to run a few tests, as I want to make sure the traffic is hitting the firewall before I log in and start toying with things. I ask the customer to run a trace route and... traffic never hits the next hop (a router between the server and the firewall, which we don't manage). Customer sheepishly hangs up and confirms half an hour later that it was a problem with their switch.

I don't know how long he worked on it before he called us, but I'm sure if he were a member of TE he'd have posted the story in this thread himself.

Always start with the basics!

sratakhin

I have to press Windows key a few times before I can unlock my computer and type the password... Otherwise, the laptop thinks that the Windows key is pressed.

About7Narwhal

I was working with my laptop once and was having issues with the wireless router. "No big deal" I though and I hooked the unit to the router directly, disabled the wireless, and continued about my day. 2 days later, I have fixed the router issue but still cannot get wireless on my laptop. I ensured the device was enabled by the touch button, disabled and re-enabled the device in Windows and still could not see anything. No networks, no signal, nothing. I removed the drivers with no success. Finally, I reinstalled Windows. A nice new OS brings the same problem. After hours of troubleshooting, I am at my wit's end. I close the laptop, pick it up from the front and then I felt it. The hardware switch I had initially turned off and never turned back on...

Needless to say, I always check the hardware switch first on any laptop with connectivity problems.

Tackle

Sometimes the simplest things can hang me up for way more time than they should. When a wireless problem comes up, I now always ask if the physical wireless switch is turned on.

Ever have to restore a deleted Outlook folder only to find out the user some how moved it into another Outlook folder? (According to them "it magically moved").

Wonder why a new printer works in the testing area, but not when it's plugged into where the old working printer was? Find out it only supports Gigabit connections.

How about when an OS won't boot up. Black screen, unbootable media. Dead hard drive? Nah, user either left a CD in or put thumb drive into the back of the computer and didn't take them out.

Where did all my icons go and why can't I see my printers? User forgets they are logged into a terminal server.

No network drives? Can't access login script? No Internet? Find out user moved their PC to clean and plugged the network cable into the disabled on-board NIC instead of the add-on Gigabit NIC.

About7Narwhal

Did you know that a USB adapter will fit perfectly into an RJ-45 receiver? I didn't, not until I constantly had users doing it. "Well, it fit, so I figured it was right..."

Roguetadhg

The_Grinch, I'm going to call you Dr_House. Because that's a story that reminded me of the series, and not any less awesome.

Of course, we need to add the random addiction to medicine (since the name is censored)...

QHalo

About7Narwhal wrote: »

Did you know that a USB adapter will fit perfectly into an RJ-45 receiver? I didn't, not until I constantly had users doing it. "Well, it fit, so I figured it was right..."

Had a team lead that did that when setting up a new user a while ago. So yes, yes I did know that lol!

RouteMyPacket

Allow me to share with you a recent situation.

I had to setup a spur of the moment "war room", configured a switch and put it in there. Checked the patch number at the wall and went and grabbed a cable from my cable rack. Plugged it in and powered the switch up and the trunk light never lit, I console into the switch and config is good, trunk looks good. I sit and stare at the switch for a second like "WTF?". So I grab the cable I had plugged in and with one closer look, it had a label on it "crossover cable". FML!

eansdad

Accidentally set up a roaming profile on a generic account used by about 500 students. That was fun to watch...

the_Grinch

I am like Dr House, but only in the fact I am addicted to caffeine haha