begin quoting Todd Walton as of Tue, Aug 08, 2006 at 08:21:26PM -0500: > I interviewed for a help desk position yesterday, very basic. Part of > the interview was taking two computerized knowledge tests: Windows XP > Technical Skills and PC Hardware. As many of you probably know, > "hardware" in the PC testing world actually means "hardware being run > by Windows".
Heh. > I scored significantly greater than average for the XP > test, and just average for the hardware test. I've never formally > trained in either, and I'm not surprised at doing so poorly. ...sigh > > A couple of questions I got on the *hardware* test: > > 1) A typical IDE-based PC has how many IDE interfaces? 1, maybe 2. > 2) COM1 and COM3 are typically associated with which IRQ? Who cares? Your BIOS should tell you this. In an ideal world, we'd've learned from the Zorro bus how to eliminate all this manually-set-the-IRQ nonesense. > 3) Which three files are necessary for a Windows 9x recovery disk? Not a hardware question. It's a trick, I tell you! > 4) A user complains that she cannot access the network. Others claim > they cannot reach the user by the network. What should be your first > step? Ping the user's machine yourself (don't trust unverified data if it's easy to verify yourself). [snip] > Number 4, I chose "replace the card". In my former life as an > electronics tech, we'd *never* start with swapping, but the other > three choices made less sense. I was wrong. If that was wrong, then > "ping the computer" would be the next step. I guess that makes sense. > You want to collect data and verify your symptoms yourself, right? Yup! Then make sure the cable is plugged in to her machine. While you're at it, make sure her power-cord, keyboard, etc. cords are also plugged in. "The network hung my machine!" isn't an unheard-of-cry when the mouse-cord comes unplugged. Then make sure the hub/switch/router has power, and that the user's network cable is plugged in, and that the little light is on.... [snip] -- _ |\_ \| -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
