Troubleshooting skills don't just happen

 

I remember a while ago when I was presenting and told the group "if you do your job right, you will always find something to fix, tune or tweak" .

After an install, I always go online the next day or two and check logs, port stats, etc..  I would say I will find something odd that is worth investigating about 30% of the time.

Over the years, I have found a lot of 100Mb POE injectors connected to 1 Gb ethernet ports and 1 Gb devices, bad cabling, 100 Mb switches/hubs on 1 Gb devices, the list goes on...

In this specific example, a new computer with a 1 Gb Ethernet interface, with new patch and structured cabling connected into a switch 1 Gb Ethernet port came up as 10 MB, and then later, 100 Mb, along with a boatload of errors.

I reached out to the client to address the issue since it can only be a few things (in order of most to least probable):

- bad patch cable at the client's desk

- bad run to the patch panel

- bad patch panel cable 

- bad switch port

- bad computer ethernet port

The clients initial response is that they are 'too busy to look at it' , and since the computer seems to be working just fine and can get on the internet, there is no urgency to address it.

Now my job is to sell, convince and educate the client that this is worth fixing before they 'notice' and it becomes a last minute support issue. :)

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