SirKenin

Here's my story. I was called on site to solve an office networking problem. The owner has ADSL, a Sonicwall firewall and 8 or more computers. Anyways, the problem was that he couldn't connect to the internet.

I did the usual tests.. I tested the modem and switch. I tested his DNS server and everything else. I left the firewall until last. Anyways, as it turns out it could resolve IPs, but it couldn't load webpages. Well that's a simple fix. Right? I guess I was wrong. See Sonicwall doesn't allow you into the control panel for diagnostic purposes. You have to call them and they service the equipment remotely. I had already figured out that a setting in the Sonicwall was the problem. That was a no brainer, but they wouldn't let me fix it. Instead they ran me around and around in circles.. Try this nonsense. Try this foolishness... Try this.. Try that.. It's not the sonicwall, it's your computers (all 8 computers? I don't think so buddy). It's your switch (and that's why all the computers can talk to each other? Nice try). It's a loose connection. Blah blah blah. I was getting very annoyed. Finally I power cycled the equipment and said ok, the sonicwall is still the problem. He logs back on and finds out the MTU is set too high for my client's DSL. He drops it down and voila. It's back up and running. What a genius.

So, I told him that if he had just let me have access to it from the beginning I would have found the problem right away and that would have been the end of it. "But I wasn't getting any packet loss".. Uh. Duh. You also were using small little packets.

Oh man I was so frustrated. Their tech support sucks. I hate when they treat you like you don't know what you're talking about.

Oh well, I got paid my $50 an hour so I'm happy... I made almost $2000 today. It's a fantastic day to be me.. WOOT!!!!

There's my story and I'm sticking to it.