Must... Not... Kill

Yesterday in Chez 0ddness was, shall we say... Fun. And I don't mean fun as in Clowns and Balloons and Laughter, I mean fun as in "I'm going to stick that so far down your throat your..." Well, see the end of the post for what I meant as it won't make sense at this point.

Two days ago, I get a call from one of my thorns in my side technically inept people. "My internet has stopped working on two of my three machines" Now, I may have mentioned this before, that while I can fumble around a network to fix it, it's not my bag, baby. I hate networking with a passion because, invariably, if it can go wrong, it does.

So I tell the person to try this, or this, or that. Nothing. Two hours on the phone. Nothing.

Now this person is a notorious fiddler. This is the person that has deleted windows files ("They were old and not used"), as moved key program files ("I wanted them on my other drive"), and has deleted items in the registry for no reason ("I was cleaning it up a bit"). After two hours, my patience - which usually limitless - is wearing a wee bit thin.

"Have you moved or deleted any files?"
"No, I've not done anything to it this time."
"OK, but are you sure - check the recycle bin."
"I'm looking... Hmmm, nope nothing in there, just movies pictures and photos"
"Been at the registry again"
"A little bit, but nothing to do with networking"
*me with clenched teeth* "When did you play in there"
"Oh it was last week, so this can't be related"

So I carry on trying to help over the phone, but the realisation that I'll need to kick it in person... That has already sunk in. I get him to repeat the story, see if I can place anything. He was copying photos to a CDROM on one computer, while playing Warcraft on another, and the photo computer was on a go slow. He quit WoW, and rebooted the other machine. When it came back on, he couldn't get onto WoW or the Internet, and when he checked computer #3, that wasn't working either.

So yesterday afternoon, I go there, intending to just pop in. Jo and the kids come along too for a trip out and I set to work. And I poke, prod, uninstall, reinstall, unplug, replug, everything I know how to get rid of the error message that is the bane of my life:

"Limited or No Connectivity"

I downloaded "fixes" from Microsoft (which didn't fix), I tried entering manual numbers to confuse the network (which didn't confuse), and rebooted the modem and switch to reset the network (which didn't reset)... A friend of his called (who apparently knows all but couldnt fix it the day before) giving me advice which was so far over my head I wanted to pull my eyeballs out. He then suggested getting a router. Information I foolishly passed on, and ended up going for a ride to PC World.

I'm not even going to start on the staff there, but, needless to say, we tried asking a "Tech Guy" for advice. His reasoning? "The two ethernet (network) ports have died at the same time, get new network cards". Aside from this being unlikely as hell, the guy refused to listen to the fact that the computers could see one another on the network.

But the PC owner decided that was the course, despite my "it's not that" comments. Then we went to look at routers which are actually reasonably cheap now and very easy to set up. However, they weren't cheap enough for someone so he complained. To me first, then to two random people in the store, then to one of the girls that works there. And again he gives her the story of what happened, except this time...

The story is slightly different.

As he's telling the story, I am drooling over a very nice laptop (so sue me) when I hear the words "...and it finished it's update and had me reboot the computer, and then I lost internet on the other machines"

Now my WTFoMeter is pinging away, and I ask what the update was for. He doesn't know. The woman says maybe we should do a system restore a day or two previous which - had I known he'd done an update, I would have done. I tell him to put the network cards down, and we leave. Get back to the house, and do the following:

• Click Start
• Click Accessories
• Click System Tools
• Click System Restore
• Click December 19th
• Click Confirm

Computer does it's thing, reboots - internet comes back on.

At that point, my emotions rippled from crying to murderous rage. We've been there so long, we're cooked dinner, eat, chat, leave.

I get in, sit on the side and watch help Jo fold laundry and the phone rings. You know where this is going too, huh.

"It's gone again."
"Both computers?"
"Yep, both Limited or No Connectivity, it's really strange"
*me wanting to cry* "Did you run, say, an update?"
"Yep, it was an nvidia update for the graphics card so I ran that, rebooted the machine and now the internet has gone."

So I talk him through a system restore (which, I might add, may only be six mouse clicks, but took me 5 minutes) and it all comes back on. He then says "My graphics card wants to update"

"Just click No, and don't run that update..."



"I'm going to stick that router, modem and network equipment so far down your throat, your farts will come out on the internet"