Category: General

Some advice for new computer technicians

Paul

Computer network technician training offered in Vancouver

We can’t do this alone!

This is the most important idea that you should understand. Most computer technicians think that they have to do it alone when it comes to problem solving an issue.  It is because  no one can ever know how to fix every possible problems that may arise.   Those are the times we should ask question and ask for help from other technicians.   This will help you even more than you might imagine because some other technician might know how to solve the issue or problem that you are having.    We might never really understand what someone else might know.   This also includes customers, because what one customer might not know another one might.

Research is everything

Sometimes even other technicians might not know what is causing the problem.  So use everything at your fingertips.   Don’t underestimate the power of word search in Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  It isn’t like one search engine is better than another.  Each search engine has some information that some others might not have.  Don’t just use one but should always use all of them.   Sometimes one search engine will not have the answers, so I will always go and check out two or more search engines for a possible fix for the issues.

You will have angry customers!

No one tells you this but no matter how nice or good you are, you’ll have those angry customers. You should be prepared to deal with them. I say this with some experience, no matter what you’ll do for a customer there will always be those who know nothing about computers and then get mad at you for some reason or another. You’ll need to learn to be patient with an angry customer. Learn to come up with ways to alleviate the stress or anger from the customer. My go to phrase when a customer is angry or stressed is “Here’s what I can do for you . . . “.   If you tell the customer that you can do something for the customer even if it is something small, it helps with making the customer feel like they are being heard.   Also learn to active listen to the customer and make sure you hear what they say by repeating back to them the problems they are having.   Also sometimes the customer is going to just need to vent and be angry.  Technicians should learn to just be there for the customers.

Computers will break!

This is the next thing you will learn being a technician, that no matter how careful you are going to be with a computer, You’ll break a system just by doing something you’ve done a billion times.   If it can be broken, it will be broken.  Murphy just likes to make people’s life harder, and we will always have those days.   I can say with certainty that no one will ever be perfect at solving problems or fixing the issues.   I’ve seen motherboards break or CMOS fail at the most unusual times.  So you should be prepared to always apologize to the customers or say your sorry and make it right, even if it’s not your fault.   Sometimes customers will want to feel like they are important to you and that helps keeps the customers coming back.

No technical jargon

No matter how much you know or think you know, keep the technical jargon to a minimum with customers.   Most of them aren’t even going to know what you are talking about if you don’t relate the problem to the customer.  I can remember several times when I heard someone tell a customers about a command or hardware and the customers eyes just glaze over because they just don’t understand.   Only tell the customer what they need to know, if it’s a customer error, teach the customer and try to prevent them from creating the problem again.

I’ve been in the computer world a long time and I am sure the old and new a like will agree that these are some valuable tips for those who might be interested in being a technician.  Nothing I’ve said here will stop angry customers but it might help.   What’s some things you’ve learned to help with customers not getting angry or make the customer happy?  I’d love to here what helped you with customers and I am sure others will too.

Security News for this Month and How that affects you!

Paul

tpm chip on imac.png

Hackers get around TPM

According to Arstechnica, a hacker was able to get around TPM in under 30 minutes.  It seems impressive for someone to be able get around something that Microsoft thinks helps secure your operating system.  I’ve been doing some major research into how secure is the TPM and secure boot.

Getting around the TPM in this manner is akin to ignoring Fort Knox and focusing on the not-so-armored car coming out of it.  — Arstechnica

Fort Knox is way better than a TPM, it just means that people don’t realize the vulnerabilities of the the TPM.   It is still relatively new and people just haven’t had the chance to thoroughly test the trusted platform module.

BlackMatter is Reborn

With Revil and DarkSide getting shut down, we now see that BlackMatter could really be just a simple name change from Darkside.

And sure enough, a recent detailed forensic analysis of the cryptographic algorithms being employed by an apparent newcomer named “BlackMatter” suggests that BlackMatter is actually DarkSide 2.0. — Steve Gibson

It seems that they have left the affiliate model and now are looking for the IAB(initial Access Brokers) to be able to infect computers and networks that might bring them some great revenue from ransomware.  Ransomware is getting more and more common and I can guess that they will start to use something like this to infect companies computers.   I doubt they will infect targets that are going to be bring them to much attention.

Print Nightmare is a feature not a bug!

I keep saying this but the Print nightmare that is being talked about last month will probably never truly be fix because Microsoft created this issue in the early days so people could easily print to any system.   Microsoft has been trying to fix some of the issues but I doubt they will ever fix them all.  The idea that it is a zero day, is something that Microsoft didn’t expect but most researchers would have said it was probably possible for several years at the least.  I am sure this will be used with a number of other things such as the Boothole exploit.  Although this has already be patched by most Linux distro, there are some that just won’t update due to not being able to or wanting to.  So there are going always have people who will not see a need to update their systems.  .

The First 6 months

Most researchers have said this but in the past 6 months there has already been more attacks than last year.   Although most of malware and ransomware writers were all just like everyone else watching what is going on in the world and covid19.  They probably weren’t very busy last year and now they need to fix that by showing us how much more they can do.   I am sure it will even be better the next 6 months but I am also hopeful the Russians government will keep putting pressure on the virus writers to keep their acts clean and leave companies alone.  I doubt it but I can only hope.

What’s your thoughts on all that has happened this year?  Do you think it will slow down or get even faster?  Do you think we will see more computers getting compromised even with TPM and Secure boot enabled?  Let me hear your thoughts.

How my blog experiment helped me and why!

Paul
Photo by: Kevin King(Chandana Perera) on Pixabay

“Failure is always an option” —  Adam Savage

Blogging is always a part of experimenting with what people will read and do.  I really don’t say that lightly because no one can ever truly know what will happen when you blog about a topic or come up with blog titles for your blog.  You could have the most boring blog but have the most readers because it has so many people who think like you.   I find that to be mostly true, the blogging niche is something that has always fascinated me when it comes to readers.   Who your readers are can be some of the best supporters of your blog or the worst depending on the niche.

The niche of things

What’s a niche, you might be asking?  A niche is according the the Cambridge dictionary is “an area or position that is exactly suitable for a small group of the same type:“.  What does that mean might be different to some but mostly it is a group of people who think or has the same kind of thoughts about a subject or idea.   For instance, I like security or even talking about Windows so I have people who like to read about that or maybe you are a technician who might need to know how to problem solve a situation.  Each of these people has a niche in a particular area and maybe even like to read what I have to say from time to time.  Understanding the niche is something that comes with experience and time.   It can’t really be seen but it can be used to grown your blogging experience.

Blogging helps me!

I can say since I started this experiment, it seems to have grown my readers base.    I also have found the blogging alone has helped me to research and understand what is required to do an essay.  While I am in school the teachers seems to want to make the students write essays as much as possible.   It has been a great help to me to have been blogging for so long that I understand how essays are being used to get students to research their area of expertise.  I think that it gives students a chance to make sure they are going in the right direction and that they will want to do the jobs when they are done with the education.  It’s been a great education experience for me since I haven’t been to college for 20+ years.   It has definitely changed over the years and I am sure that even now it will change in the future.

Water flows in many Directions

I can’t say that it isn’t something that not everyone will understand.   Blogging is like water, it will flow through people or around people who have little interest in the topic at hand.  I’ve learned a lot about my readers and who my readers are just by doing this little experiment.  I know what people like to read or even why they might like to read the posts I do.  I intend to keep this up in the future to help draw more people to my blog.   I am hopeful that it helps me to create even more  connections with my readers. I hope this blog has done you some good.  I am sure this will be an interesting year for everyone due to what happened last year.

What would you like me to talk about?  Maybe you have something you want me to talk about or maybe you have a question.  Why leave a comment or send me a message on twitter at @laforge129.

 

 

How to problem solve a motherboard post issue

Paul

Motherboard

Motherboards are all different

Anyone who has been working with motherboards for years, probably will say this also.   Motherboard manufacturers all create their own unique motherboards to try to be different from the other.  That is the first thing for those who have issues with your motherboard and having difficulty trying to figure out what is causing your motherboard not to post or even show any signs of booting.   It can be a multitude of things that might be the cause of the issue and we’ll talk about each and every one that might be the reason for the problem.   Each issue might be a little bit different and that can bring on some more issues or concerns.  Don’t get discouraged because you can’t figure it out or know where to start.

Loose wires

This is the first place I look when I have this issue of nothing showing up or even looking like it is even going to boot.   Even a loose wire might prevent the system from starting up or even getting into the bios.   I’ve seen this at least once or twice that there was a SATA cable that was partially not plugged in and the system was just stuck and not trying to boot.   It’s usually the first place I’d look if the user says they just moved their system and now the system won’t boot because some wire somewhere came loose.   It’s usually the easiest fix for some problems.  It however isn’t the only reasons that the system might not boot.

Memory Modules

The memory modules which can be anything from DDR1 to DDR4 depending on the motherboard.  Memory sticks can go bad over time and this is usually what causes a lot of issues.  I usually just pull out all modules and start booting with just one until you find the culprit.   If it boots replace that module with the next module and see if the system still boots.  If it doesn’t then you have the issue the module is bad but if all of them boot or the problem persists than the modules aren’t the problem.  Then you will need to check other areas.

Check GPU

If the system has a GPU than this might also be the issue.  You can try to remove it and see if you can get the system to post by using the systems graphics processors if it has one.  If not you might try a cheap gpu to see if the system will post after you swap the GPU.  It’s usually not the GPU but you never know and that is where I find the problem can be sometimes.   Also if the GPU is getting to hot the motherboard might not post to protect itself and that might be the issue.   You can always redo the GPU and put new thermal paste down to help it keep cool.  I’ve found the thermal paste sometimes goes bad.

Check Hard drives

This is where I usually go next.  It can be as simple as a hard drive issue that is causing the system not post or boot into bios.   Strange as this might seem the issue can actual cause this to happen and the system will just not boot.  unplug all SATA cables and pull any NVME drives and try booting.  If it was the issues the system will at least boot to bios after that.  If it is the problem just slowly start with operating system boot drive (NVME or SATA) and see what happens until you get back to a no post issue.  When you do this you might find it is time to replace the SATA or NVME if it is that.

Reset Bios

This is usually where I go next when the problem persists and nothing seems to work.  It can be a problem in the bios and you’ll need to reset it or clear the bios memory,  to see if the problem persists.  Sometimes the bios has issues of its own and you will need to clear the bios and see if you can get the system to post.   Also if it does post, it might be time to update the bios to see if that will also help resolve the issue later on.  Sometimes even updating the bios seems to resolve the issue even better than just resetting the bios.

CPU or Motherboard

If you have done all that and the system still doesn’t boot, you know it is either the CPU or motherboard that is bad and that is where it gets interesting.  If you have another CPU that you know works, and you can put it in there to see if the system boots.  Also check the thermal paste on the cpu, if it is getting too hot on the cpu that might cause the system not to boot.  That would be my first thing to try to see if this will resolve the issue.   If not it might be time to buy another CPU or Motherboard.   It can happen that the mother just goes bad for whatever reason.   I’ve not seen it but I’ve heard about it that the motherboard can go bad.   If you can’t get the system post that is the final thing you can do to get your system running again.  Replace the Motherboard and RMA the motherboard.

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3 topics I enjoy to talk about and why?

Paul

Topics

Science Fiction

To boldly go where no man has gone before!  You’ve probably heard that saying before but I grew up with Star Wars, and And Star Trek.   I even Grew up with Buck Rogers or even The Million dollar man.  I love the fact that there were new technology and new ways to deal with problems.   I would go to cons in my area whenever there was one and I still might when they start doing it again.   I can remember the days that I would watch every single episodes of the original Star Trek and want to meet some of these people myself.  I can’t imagine I am no the only one.  This is why I listen to all these audio books because I just keep imagining meeting different aliens and knowing what the world will be like or how different it will become.

Technology

It’s all in how you see the world.  Yes it so much more better seeing the world when I know that there are possibilities that we have never imagined.  I see companies that are trying to innovate and then I see companies who just like to keep the things the same.   Without innovation we would not become even better.   I could talk about technology until the day I am out of breath but I wouldn’t stop just for myself.   I even like to know what they will do in the future and I imagine them to be so much better than before.  After everything we’ve seen, can it not get even more better than we could possibly imagine?

Games

The cake is a lie!  Lately I have been playing old games that can easily be played on my newer systems because the games reminds me where I came from and why I did what I did.  It’s all in how you approach the problem and figure out the problem.   I simply love to problem solve and see what I can do with the games.   I guess that’s why I love puzzle games like Portal, Subnautica, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020,  Half Life Series and Terratech or anything that lets me build or problem solve.   I can’t imagine I am the only one who likes these types of games because it is just fun to be able to do things and try new ways to play a game or solve a puzzle in the game.   I hope the game developers get even more creative in the way they will allow the player to solve the game or let the player figure a problem out in several ways.

These are just a few things I can talk about and still do whenever I see Something that I want to talk about on my blog.  These are only a few topics that I enjoy to write about and even might even make more topics as I see more things that I need to write about.   What are some things you like to talk about and why?  Let me know what you like and don’t and we can discuss them in the comments below.