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back to article If we can't find a working SCSI cable, the company will close tomorrow

Welcome again to On-Call, our Friday fumble through memories of jobs on which things didn't go as planned. Or sometimes went in ways it's not possible to plan. This week, meet “Jean” who in the early noughties scored a gig as “a fairly new-to-the-game support engineer for a shifter of overpriced household furniture.” Jean …

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  1. Jan 0 Silver badge

    Full marks for extra experience!

    I imagine that Jean has prospered. I too have found myself unbending pins in the middle of the night while the administrators with no hardware nous were reading logs and rerunning diagnostics. Understanding how the kit works from mechanical, optical and electrical viewpoints will always give you an edge. Nowadays, for example: scratched faces on fibre interconnects? Been there, because I used to work, in the 90s, in a company where they used to cut and terminate their own fibres for ATM and Fibre Channel. Do you have a microscope and polishing kit to hand?

    42 2 Reply
    1. Chris King
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      Re: Full marks for extra experience!

      "Do you have a microscope and polishing kit to hand?"

      If they're cutting and terminating cables like that, probably not.

      And they probably "tested" the cable by plugging both cables into a barrel connector at one end, then shining a torch down the other end.

      This is what happens when you cheap out and subcontract networking installations to the local sparkies, and he subcontracts the fibre installs.

      8 0 Reply
    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
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      Thumb Up

      Re: Full marks for extra experience!

      Sadly the people with this sort of experience are getting rather long in the tooth these days. I'm retiring later this year.

      Youngsters marvel at you as you fix a dodgy Cat-5 cable connector by cutting off the old one and applying a new one with your trusty crimp tool.

      I did this at one company. The IT Director said that they'd received a quote of £1500 to relay the whole effing cable. All I did was replace the connector and test the cable using my Ethernet tester. With the cable checking out, I plugged it back in and the archiving could be done.

      Got a 12-bottle case of Verve for my 30 minutes of work (the company was a wine merchants).

      It might be worth getting a list of what bits of kit people carry with them 'just in case' and what bits have saved the day more than once.

      36 0 Reply
      1. Martin an gof Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Full marks for extra experience!

        It might be worth getting a list of what bits of kit people carry with them 'just in case' and what bits have saved the day more than once.

        Penknife. Pure and simple, basic Swiss Army Knife. Specifically one of these.

        Ok, it won't cope with fibre termination, but it'll do just about anything else from emergency punch-down resetting to dealing with rack bolts to "field modification" of (say) ceiling panels. I won't pretend it's as good as the "proper" tools, but it stays permanently in my pocket and has saved me more times than I can say.

        M.

        23 0 Reply
        1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Big Brother

          knife stays permanently in my pocket

          Good for you , although these days they'd probly call the SWAT team out if they knew.

          Cop: "You sir are 'going equipped' "

          Joe: "Yes , I learnt that in the scouts. Do I get a reward?"

          18 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Full marks for extra experience!

          I too had a proper SAK when I was working.

          I was in Arizona once when I was faced with a pile of documents, all stapled, that needed unstapling and reassembling, so without thinking I got out the SAK and started to remove the staples. Suddenly I was aware of these Americans staring at me, and one asked how I had ever got that through the airline security. This was two years pre 9/11, and I told them I had checked and it was perfectly legal. These were guys who had gun racks in their pickups, go figure.

          5 0 Reply
        3. PNGuinn
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          Headmaster

          Re: Full marks for extra experience! re "one of these"

          Medium Pocket Knife with Screedriver and Saw.

          Something to do with skiing? Or cuckoo clocks?

          1 0 Reply
          1. Unicornpiss
            Reply Icon

            Re: Full marks for extra experience! re "one of these"

            I always have a rather large pocket knife. It gets put in my luggage when I travel, then back in my pocket when I reach my destination. Same with the RJ-45 crimper. I have watched people in our engineering department marvel at me putting a new end on a piece of proprietary test equipment cable. "We just spent $160 on a new one of these. I didn't know you could just replace the end." And when you need a crossover cable in a pinch, it's simple to just whip one up in the exact length you need.

            The company I used to work for was going through so many telephone handset cords at their call center that I bought the manager a RJ-10 crimper and a box of connectors and showed her how she could replace the "staticky" cable end in a few minutes for 10 cents instead of spending a few bucks per cord to replace a dozen a week.

            I never did a lot with my electronics education other than being a hobbyist, but it does also often serve me well in IT.

            5 0 Reply
        4. Sgt_Oddball
          Reply Icon

          Re: Full marks for extra experience!

          I still swear by my old forester knife (now out of production by the look of things)..

          Best £26 I ever spent (and the first thing I ever bought with my first paycheque at the age of 16).

          1 0 Reply
        5. TheProf
          Reply Icon
          Happy

          Penknife. Pure and simple, basic Swiss Army Knife.

          I bought a similar knife but got the one with a corkscrew instead of the Philips screwdriver.

          When are you ever going to need a Philips screwdriver these days?

          2 0 Reply
          1. Martin an gof Silver badge
            Reply Icon
            Happy

            Re: Penknife. Pure and simple, basic Swiss Army Knife.

            When are you ever going to need a Philips screwdriver these days?

            When are you ever going to need a corkscrew? It's getting very difficult to find corked wine these days.

            The advantage of the Philips is the T-shape the penknife makes when you open it. Although it's easier to unscrew rackbolts using the big flatblade, sometimes they're so stiff you need the extra leverage that the T-shape gives, just to get them started.

            Oh, and a torch, as someone else mentioned. In my case it's a simple Petzl Tikka headtorch. I've had a number of others, but this thing is tough and the batteries last well. The light is bright, but not blinding and the beam is wide-ish, rather than the useless spot you sometimes get with cheap LED lamps.

            M.

            3 0 Reply
        6. Loud Speaker
          Reply Icon

          Re: Full marks for extra experience!

          I still have a ship load of SCSI cables - I have been trying to sell them on Ebay!

          1 0 Reply
        7. 尼尔
          Reply Icon

          Re: Full marks for extra experience!

          Swiss Army knife is SO useful. Last year I had the screen on a Nexus 7 Mk 2 replaced, but later found the rear camera did not work. Opened it up, took it all to bits and reconnected the camera with just the one tool.

          Mind you, the original repair guy, in China, had made me blink when he opened the tablet by running his thumbnail round it!

          2 0 Reply
      2. Stoneshop
        Reply Icon

        Re: Full marks for extra experience!

        It might be worth getting a list of what bits of kit people carry with them 'just in case'

        Leatherman multitool (Charge TTi), PB Swiss tool roll, one of those nicely bright LED flashlights (single 18650 cell. And a headband LED light.

        Got a DS25 going again, twice, and oodles of DS10's.

        For PC's I have the Lowa Tibet size 46 (11)

        6 0 Reply
        1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Thumb Up

          Re: Full marks for extra experience!

          ...one of those nicely bright LED flashlights (single 18650 cell.

          I prefer those that use two CR123...can be purchased at better camera shops.

          The 18650, you need to recharge when flat, meaning you need to either carry a spare, or the charger.

          1 0 Reply
      3. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Full marks for extra experience!

        "All I did was replace the connector and test the cable using my Ethernet tester. With the cable checking out, I plugged it back in and the archiving could be done."

        A cable run that long would surely end in a back box and not a plug (jack)? So yes I'd have done the same but I'd have got a drill, plugs and screws out first and a flourish with a punchdown tool.

        Then I'd have got some trunking ...

        1 0 Reply
      4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Full marks for extra experience!

        "It might be worth getting a list of what bits of kit people carry with them 'just in case' and what bits have saved the day more than once."

        A live Linux CD to prove it really is Windows that's fscked up after all the other diags and tests have proved the hardware is good but the customer is still complaining that the audio or whatever still doesn't work and yes, you really do need to get back onto your own IT people to fix it. (ie re-install it since most likely there is OS corruption because the user probably pulled the mains plug out on a live system one time too many)

        8 0 Reply
        1. Unicornpiss
          Reply Icon

          Re: Full marks for extra experience!

          Agree with what you're saying about the live Linux CD, but I was rebuilding a used PC for someone with a new Windows 7 installation and found that it would hang during installation. A live 64-bit LInux CD would work fine, as would trying the 32-bit install of Windows.

          In the end, it turned out that the machine had some hardware problem, but apparently the Linux disc and 32-bit Win disc didn't tax the machine's resources like installing 64-bit Win 7.

          2 0 Reply
      5. Andrew Moore
        Reply Icon

        Re: Full marks for extra experience!

        Nearly the same experience (no champagne though), it wasn't a faulty connector- it was the "tang" missing from the top of the RJ45 which meant it kept slipping out of the socket. 10 seconds with my crimp tool saved large amounts of money.

        1 0 Reply
  2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Been there, done that

    Deja vu all around. Both - the IBM engineer bending a pin and having to sort out cabling in the wee hours of the night.

    7 1 Reply
    1. Steven 1
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      Re: Been there, done that

      Also been there, done that, just replace Compaq for IBM!!

      1 0 Reply
      1. MrDamage Silver badge
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        Re: Been there, done that

        Replace Compaq and IBM with HP, and been there as well.

        1 0 Reply
        1. Wensleydale Cheese
          Reply Icon
          Happy

          Re: Been there, done that

          "Replace Compaq and IBM with HP, and been there as well."

          Hat trick!

          All three, plus DEC and spinoffs thereof.

          2 0 Reply
  3. CAPS LOCK

    Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

    ... always suspect the cables.

    23 0 Reply
    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

      I do. But last time I thought an audio 3.5mm > phono cable was playing up, I spent ages trying to 'fix' it. No joy. I took the input panel off the back of the speaker and discovered that the coiled wire thingy had fallen off the crossover PCB. Dollop of polyurethane and a resoldered contact and the whole set up was right as rain.

      6 0 Reply
      1. Annihilator
        Reply Icon
        Happy

        Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

        "the coiled wire thingy"

        Woah, slow down with all your technical jargon! :-D

        29 0 Reply
        1. Dave 126 Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

          Well, the good thing is that even not knowing the a coiled wire thingy was, I could see that it wasn't where it was supposed to be! Hmmm, the groove in this lump of solder matches the wire that comes off this strangely free thing....

          Similarly, one of the pink donut things on a motherboard of mine was brown and dirty looking, unlike its friends. Diagnosis was the motherboard was, and I do believe this is a technical term, fucked.

          20 0 Reply
          1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
            Reply Icon
            Happy

            Re: Dave 126 Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

            From the days filling out service forms (when online forms didn't exist), we had a box where we had to enter our reason for replacing an item, regardless of how obvious the problem, and one of my colleagues gained fame for actually using the following phrase repeatedly and it not getting spotted by management - "Field Unit Checked, Known Error Detected".

            21 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

          > Woah, slow down with all your technical jargon! :-D

          http://dilbert.com/strip/1997-06-10

          7 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

        I had similar buying a new mic. Turns out it was the sound card drivers. Branded ones just so happened to crackle and pop at the point with a mic you'd suspect hardware faults. Unbranded (direct from the chip manufacture not the badge supplier) work a treat.

        2 0 Reply
      3. waldo kitty
        Reply Icon
        Boffin

        Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

        the coiled wire thingy

        that's called an inductor... it performs the opposite job of a capacitor ;)

        4 1 Reply
        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Happy

          Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

          Hmmm.

          A capacitor stores energy

          Your move :P

          5 0 Reply
          1. Richard 12 Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

            Too vague to be useful.

            A capacitor stores *charge*.

            One could say that an inductor stores magnetism.

            10 0 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

              One could not. The inductor stores energy. A permanent magnet stores a magnetic field but it isn't an inductor.

              An inductor stores energy proportional to current and a capacitor stores energy proportional to PD across the terminals. Short a capacitor, get a magnetic field. Open circuit an inductor, get an electric field. The EM field gets transformed.

              When I came across this in A level physics, it just seemed so beautiful and elegant I immediately wanted to be an electronic engineer.

              11 1 Reply
              1. Chris Holford
                Reply Icon
                Headmaster

                Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

                -capacitor stores energy proportional to square of PD across terminals

                -inductor stores energy proportional to square of current flowing

                1 0 Reply
            2. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

              A capacitor stores electric field energy and acts as a high pass filter.

              An inductor stores magnetic field energy and acts as a low pass filter.

              I've never had an inductor failure on a mainboard, but plenty of capacitor failures.

              4 1 Reply
          2. TheOtherHobbes
            Reply Icon

            Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

            >A capacitor stores energy

            An inductor stores the other kind of energy.

            5 0 Reply
            1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
              Reply Icon
              Happy

              Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

              I see what you did there!

              With your nickname that just adds another dimension of symmetry.

              1 0 Reply
    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Re: CAPS LOCK Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

      "....always suspect the cables." But also be careful to test them as they are installed (usually curled up and held by Velcro because the SCSI cable is like 15 feet long when the server is only six inches from the drive). I had an engineer who insisted one pair of SCSI cables were good and refused to replace them, because he took them out of the rack and laid them out straight to test them. I suspected they had been curled too tightly, beyond minimum curvature of the cable, and straightening them was making the damaged wires inside the cable contact and pass his test, but the minute they went back in the rack and were wrapped up the break opened. He said that was unlikely, but when he wrapped them up and tested them they both failed. Lesson learned - test as you mean to use isn't just for software.

      /Beer, 'cos that what cabling war stories are meant for!

      16 0 Reply
      1. Alistair
        Reply Icon
        Coat

        Re: CAPS LOCK Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

        @Matt B.

        upvoted - DAC cables, scsi cables, chassis interconnects on SGI and IBM boxes, EMC bus cables, fiber too.

        1 0 Reply
      2. Myvekk
        Reply Icon

        Re: CAPS LOCK Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

        Related to test as you use, and cables. Not my story, but I can't remember whose it was...

        Call to helldesk that network connection is out. Tech come up to fix and everything works as he stands there testing it. Next day, same thing happens. He walks to desk & everything works as the guy who works there sits back to give him space. Day 3, same again.

        This time he asks the guy to demonstrate and as he sits at his PC & starts to work, out goes the network connection. After much troubleshooting the fault was traced to the network cable, that a dodgy installer had run straight across the floor under the carpet... It was positioned such that as the guy sat at his desk, the wheel from the chair ran up against it & over time it had cracked a conductor. So when he sat there it was pushed open, but once the chair moved back to give the tech space, it reconnected.

        2 0 Reply
    3. Alan Brown Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

      You mean "always suspect the connectors"

      Especially in cars.

      2 0 Reply
  4. RIBrsiq
    WTF?

    Planet Beancounter

    Backups are important. I would be at the head of the queue to tell you this. In fact, I'd probably have come in half an hour before, said my piece and long gone by the time the queue formed.

    But not this important! I mean, they're backups, for Bob's sake! Of your actual data you actually need to run. Only to be needed -- and usually found not up-to-date/functional -- when the live copy fails.

    7 0 Reply
    1. Charles 9
      Reply Icon

      Re: Planet Beancounter

      "But not this important! I mean, they're backups, for Bob's sake! Of your actual data you actually need to run. Only to be needed -- and usually found not up-to-date/functional -- when the live copy fails."

      The thing is, the people demanding the backups belong to the insurance company. Basically, they're not going to pony up for "being bloody stupid," and not having a viable backup to them is considered "being bloody stupid," since live data crashing without a backup basically means you're screwed.

      19 1 Reply
  5. asphytxtc
    Pint

    Indeed this is a story that resonates a lot with me as well.. spending hours into the night in a comms cabinet at a new office just the other side of the office park to the main HQ, configuring a router where the link would stubbornly refuse to come up and everyone else had given up.

    Checked the newly installed cat5 drop to the downstairs comms room where the fibre terminated.. and the so called "professional" network engineer has punched two wires into the same bloody pin.. sigh..

    Always check the cables.. yes..

    Icon because, well, Friday!

    16 0 Reply
  6. Alan Bourke

    "nobody from management or accounting batted an eyelid or offered Jean a word of thanks."

    Standard. Gobshites.

    37 0 Reply
  7. Christopher Slater-Walker

    Start with the basics...

    Always start with the physical layer, in the absence of any other clues. It's common sense, innit?

    4 0 Reply
    1. Paul Kinsler
      Reply Icon

      Re: Always start with the physical layer,

      Absolutely. First check that your Higgs boson has the correct energy, ... :-)

      33 0 Reply
      1. swm
        Reply Icon

        Re: Always start with the physical layer,

        Absolutely. First check that your Higgs boson has the correct energy, ... :-)

        And if it doesn't ???

        0 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Start with the basics...

      At the physical layer, I'll think you'll find it's carrier sense (multiple access with collision detection)

      0 0 Reply

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