I have to express a little sympathy for service techs here. Years ago, when I repaired/maintained copiers for a living, I had a problem that always occurred while I was away, yet the machine performed perfectly every time I was there. After half a dozen service calls (and the customer being ready to put the machine in the dumpster), I had the problem occur while I was present and found that it was power related. The outlet that served the copier was on the same breaker as the company's break room, and in the afternoon people would come in and cook things in three microwave ovens that were all on the same breaker. I happened to be there during break time and watched power drop from 113VAC to 93VAC. Of course, within 15 minutes the problem had gone away.
The point of this post is not to apologize for your service techs, however. The point is to help make you aware that there are many external factors that can affect the operation of any complex electrical system. The more complete, even nitpicky, you can make your list of conditions when the problem occurs and when it goes away, the better your tech's chance of finding the common denominators of the problem, which is of course the core of the art of troubleshooting. Something as seemingly unrelated as your spouse using a blow dryer in a bathroom on the other side of the wall can theoretically be the key to the problem. I suggest that when the problem occurs you note (if you can) time, temperature, humidity, local weather conditions, day of the week, appliances in use close by, and anything else you can think of.
Obviously I cannot troubleshoot the problem from here, but the more bits of information you give your tech, the more likely he is to spot a pattern.
Good luck.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/03/still-having-comcast-issues.html (1 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
I have to express a little sympathy for service techs here. Years ago, when I repaired/maintained copiers for a living, I had a problem that always occurred while I was away, yet the machine performed perfectly every time I was there. After half a dozen service calls (and the customer being ready to put the machine in the dumpster), I had the problem occur while I was present and found that it was power related. The outlet that served the copier was on the same breaker as the company's break room, and in the afternoon people would come in and cook things in three microwave ovens that were all on the same breaker. I happened to be there during break time and watched power drop from 113VAC to 93VAC. Of course, within 15 minutes the problem had gone away.
The point of this post is not to apologize for your service techs, however. The point is to help make you aware that there are many external factors that can affect the operation of any complex electrical system. The more complete, even nitpicky, you can make your list of conditions when the problem occurs and when it goes away, the better your tech's chance of finding the common denominators of the problem, which is of course the core of the art of troubleshooting. Something as seemingly unrelated as your spouse using a blow dryer in a bathroom on the other side of the wall can theoretically be the key to the problem. I suggest that when the problem occurs you note (if you can) time, temperature, humidity, local weather conditions, day of the week, appliances in use close by, and anything else you can think of.
Obviously I cannot troubleshoot the problem from here, but the more bits of information you give your tech, the more likely he is to spot a pattern.
Good luck.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>