3 Do’s an 3 Don’ts of Home Troubleshooting

 

It’s happened.  Your worst fears materialize in the midst of binge watching every single episode of Stranger Things, and your internet freezes.  Dun-dun DUUUNNN!!!  It would be easy to let panic get the better of you and completely lose your sanity, throw your devices out the window, sell everything and become a beggar on the streets of Kathmandu.

Or option 2, try out some home troubleshooting basics.  You may be reluctant to call tech support after the last technician made you feel foolish for forgetting your email password but don’t fret, here are 3 easy Do’s and 3 Don’ts that you can follow without calling in to tech support.

     1)      Turn off your internet.  Like, power it down completely by unplugging the power cable from our little black POE box from the wall, just the power cable and leaving it off for about a minute.

     2)      Follow suit by rebooting your router next.  After rebooting the internet, if you still can’t see Mike and Eleven saving the town of Hawkins, unplug the router from power and leave it off for about a minute before plugging it back in.

    3)      You guessed it.  The reboot hat-trick is complete by rebooting your device.  Whether its an iPad, smart phone, smart TV, desktop or laptop computer, everything needs a reboot now and again.

If Will still isn’t back from the Upside Down (I know, I’m really wearing this Stranger Things thing out), don’t panic and do something that will turn a bad situation into a worse one by avoiding the following 3 missteps.

     1)      Avoid unplugging any cables from any devices (other than the pronged power cables/cords that plug into power outlets).  If it has a clip or there are more holes than cables and you can’t be sure which one goes back where then please save yourself and everyone else some trouble and leave all other cabling alone.  You may say to yourself, but surely I can remember where this little cable goes, and you may be overestimating yourself.  This is one of the most common and most difficult calls to the tech support line that we get as it is extremely difficult to pinpoint.

     2)      Don’t press the reset button on any device.  The perils of this course of action are outlined in another blog post, but suffice to say that this will only make matters worse.

     3)      Don’t hesitate to call tech support.  We have seen it all and we have made stupid mistakes too, didn’t someone famous say, ‘too err is human.’  If rebooting your devices hasn’t helped you out we certainly will be able to.  While we can’t always solve every issue immediately (sometimes things break) we can at least get the ball rolling.

Hopefully these Do’s and don’ts don’t frustrate your attempts to get online and do get you up and running again.