Ahhh...  The age-old and possibly ethical question of how best to solve
ambiguous issues without having to charge your customer an arm and a leg.

Sometimes you can figure it out fairly quickly, other times you cannot.  If
I cannot pinpoint a hardware or driver problem in pretty short order (I use
two hardware diagnostics program called Troubleshooter and QAFE), I take a
best-guess (based on my experience) on about how long it might take for me
to track the problem down.  If I think it's going to be more than about
three hours, FFR it is.

For my own part, I would love to know why.  I am a very "why" oriented
individual, and I have a hard time accepting anything at face value.  I want
to know how the clock ticks, not just know that it does.  BUT, my customer
should not be made to pay for my curiosity.  If I can figure out why, I will
tell them.  If they REALLY want to know, I make sure and explain to them
that the minimum it will cost is $200 (based on an estimate of at least four
hours work), and could be much more, depending on how deep I need to dig.
As well, they will be without their computer during the entire time I am
digging into it.

Usually the reinstall will actually help you discover the problem.  I found
that most driver conflicts will expose themselves when you go through the
install process.  Sometimes the problem is a corrupted driver that is fixed
during the reinstall, but figuring out which driver it could be before-hand
can cost much more time than a FFR.  In the end, I usually leave it up to
the customer, explaining the pro's and con's of each approach, but more
often that not my recommendation is the FFR.

Kyle Elmblade
Distinct Computer Solutions
Sales - Upgrades - Training - Consulting
[log in to unmask]
"A closed mouth gathers no foot"

From: "Mike Whalen" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 8:19 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] For the Professionals...


> I thought this might be a good place for this question since there
> are so many professionals -- as in working techs -- on this list. I
> have worked in tech support for a few years and have recently started
> taking on my own clients for Windows support and troubleshooting.
>
> Every once in awhile, I get a client who complains of general
> instability -- Applications crash. PC BSODs, GPFs, etc.
>
> My previous tech support experience has been working hand-in-hand
> with developers. So, I would, first, reproduce the problem, second,
> determine the steps to produce a hard failure, and, three, take it to
> development for logging and a possible patch.
>
> It seems to me, however, that my customers don't care for this
> approach. (Aside from the "take it to development" part, which may or
> may not be available, as we all know.) They want it all to be better
> as soon as possible and they don't so much want to know _why_
> something doesn't work.
>
> I understand their reluctance; they're paying me by the hour. It
> could be substantially more expensive for me to eliminate every
> problem one-by-one. But I cringe at the Scorched PC policy, as
> someone at Gateway Tech Support put it to me. "F-Disk, Format,
> Reinstall. Doo-Dah. Doo-Dah." For one thing, it may not eliminate the
> problem. For another thing, we won't know what caused the problem in
> the first place. (Learning from history and all that.)
>
> Plus, in all of this there I have the desire to create something
> affordable _and_ practical for the customer.
>
> I'm wondering how you guys deal with this? Do you apply some
> policy-driven set of fixes then, if those don't work, go into
> seek-and-destory-errors mode? Do you install in-place if the O.S.
> supports it? Do you backup files, format, and reinstall? Or, do you
> convince the customer to pay you to actually troubleshoot?
>
> Curious...
>
> m

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