Dan Butler's
TNPC Newsletter

Technical Support and Snipe Hunting

by Al Gordon

It certainly doesn't work for customers. And it costs the industry a lot of money. In some cases, it does more harm than good. Sometimes the tech support is out-and-out incompetent. But for the most part, it's solid and well-intentioned. The problem is unless a technician has a brief flash of inspiration, or just gets lucky, they are in a nearly impossible position.

Consider, for example, my recent SCSI Snipe Hunt.

I am sitting here dreading the arrival of my next long-distance telephone bill, as it will contain hours of conversations with tech support people across the country, most of it invested in entirely futile and misdirected efforts.

SCSI is, admittedly, an extreme example as it is a complicated chain of connected devices. But the truth is, all computer configurations are complicated assortments of hardware and software, which can be arranged in nearly infinite combination.

My new PC from Dell came with an Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI card installed, running a Quantum hard drive. I also ordered a second SCSI hard drive from Dell, which I wanted to be a duplicate of the installed one, but they sent me a Western Digital. Who knows why. I installed the second drive, and added an internal SCSI CD Writer, a Smart and Friendly "SpeedRacer" (a re-branded Yamaha CRW4416S). A tape backup drive, a Zip drive, and a scanner were attached externally.

Now, let's look at the tech support lineup of this installation:

-- Dell, under its OEM deal with Adaptec, is responsible for supporting the card. Except that Dell limited support to the card's factory-installed uses. Except that Dell technicians are trained on Dell hardware and do not know much about the range of cables, converters, and the like needed to maintain a SCSI chain.

-- Smart and Friendly is responsible for the drive and for its bundled software. Except that they deferred to Yamaha for the most recent firmware upgrade. Except that they suggested calling Adaptec when problems arose.

-- Iomega, of course, supports the Zip and software. The scanner and tape drive are from Hewlett-Packard, which supports both the hardware and software. Except that each HP product category has its own support team, so that means two more entrants in the support sweepstakes.

This brings to mind the old catch phrase from "Ghostbusters", "Who you gonna call?"

The problems began immediately upon attempting to install the CD Writer. The SCSI card didn't detect it. Scratch my head. Contact Smart and Friendly tech support. They tell me the drive has an undetermined problem with a 2940; try changing the SCSI ID from the default 6 to something else. Eventually, I determine that 2 and 4 will work.

New problem: the CD Writer won't write. I get a wide range of error messages in the bundled Adaptec Easy CD Creator software. Smart and Friendly tech support isn't sure why, and suggests I ask Adaptec. Dell also suggests that. Officially, I am not entitled to do that because of the OEM deals. Unofficially, an Adaptec tech gives me a few suggestions, which don't solve the problem.

I go out and buy the Deluxe version of the Creator software, not so much because it has a couple of extra features, as because it qualifies me for official Adaptec support. I get back on the phone to them and run out my phone bill for -- literally -- a couple of hours worth. The disk writing problem never gets solved, but I do learn a variety of important things about configuring the 2940 card -- among them that Dell had connected the hard drives to the wrong connector; that notwithstanding the fact that the card is supposed to automatically synchronize its settings with the peripherals, they need to be manually configured; and that without a special cable adapter for the externals, my externals are slowing down data rates for my hard drives.

At this point, I am beginning to suspect that the CD Writer is neither smart nor friendly. Fortunately, I am still within the return window at CDW, an exchange it for a new HP 8500 (ATAPI -- I am tired of messing with the SCSI). This works immediately upon installation. But now I am having problems with a tape drive. A light bulb blinks: I had put in a 50-pin cable and adapter that supported both external and internal 50-pin devices. With the SCSI CD Writer removed, there are no 50-pin internal devices. I buy the external-only version of the adapter.

FINALLY... everything is working.

It's certainly tempting to blame this all on bad tech support. To be sure, there is such a thing -- not too long ago I spent an entire day helping a friend undo the damage done to his laptop by following Compaq's tech support advice. But that was not the case here. Everyone I spoke to made a concerted effort to help and nothing they told me was entirely wrong. Everyone went well beyond their company's official support policies.

The problem was -- the problem is -- that they are all responsible for just one piece of an integrated system. No one is responsible for the whole package. This has to change.

In the enterprise world, IT people can provide integrated support. But unless an end user has very deep pockets, that kind of support isn't affordable. There are, however, at least a couple of trends now burgeoning in the computer business that could bring integrated support to the masses.

One is the move to ever-faster Internet connections, especially cable Broadband and telephone DSL. Back in November (http://www.thenakedpc.com/backissues/v1i12.html), Dan Butler described the VNC remote control software. Its producer, Virtual Network Computing, subsequently has been acquired by AT&T (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/) which in turn is buying up cable systems left and right. There are any number of remote computing products on the market; this one has the key advantage of being free -- and, even after the sale to AT&T, it still is.

Dan demonstrated on my machine that, from across the country, he could access settings on my system to make fixes and could run my software to demonstrate specific functions. It's no big stretch to envision support technicians or computer consultants being able to do the same thing. (Lest this sound a little Big Brother- ish, there is password protection and the remote link can't happen unless the user starts the software on his or her end.)

Second, technical support increasingly is being contracted out. In many cases, the contractors work for more than one company. So why not get some leverage out of that? Support contractors could offer consumers "one-stop shopping" for technical help on several different products from several different vendors. There are obvious antitrust and restraint-of-trade dangers in this. But they aren't necessarily insurmountable.

How practical this might be, I do not know. There is no TECHNICAL reason why it isn't practical, but contractual arrangements and proprietary information are an entirely different can of worms. I don't see anyone being happy with the current situation, however, so if anybody has a better idea...