IT Support: Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?

I normally write posts about bookkeeping and accounts as that is my area of expertise, but Paul, our other director, specialises in IT support ...

It's a classic IT support statement: ''have you tried turning it off and on again'' You'd be surprised how often that works!

He told me an interesting story this week about a client making an incorrect assumption which I thought I would share with you. It's about one of our ad-hoc clients, who come to us for our IT services just when they need something done or have a problem.

"They had a new member of staff join them last week, so needed a machine setting up!"

Paul logged in remotely to set up a new user on the machine, and while he was connected, he was also doing some general maintenance updates on the business owner's computer; so in an office of 6 people, he had 'touched' two machines.

The next morning he had a panicked message from the business owner to say neither he nor the new member of staff could print. He was able to print before Paul did the updates, so Paul had obviously broken something.

Paul remotely logged in again, and sure enough, the printer wasn't showing on the network. Before going down the route of troubleshooting, he asked if anyone else in the office had printed that day. A quick shout around the office and it was discovered that no one could see the printer that morning.

In fact, it wasn't a problem with the two machines that had been worked on, it was a problem for everyone. It was therefore unlikely that we had caused the issue while doing our work. What had actually happened was the printer (for some strange reason) had dropped off the wireless network, so what Paul instructed them to do was to, yes, you guessed it ... turn it off and on again!

"Hey presto, that was enough to re-establish the links and then everyone could then print again!"

So, the moral of this story is ... don't always jump to the simplest conclusion, double check if everyone is having the same problem as you, and just try turning it off and on again. It may just save yourself the cost of a support call.

At Silicon Bullet, we offer ad hoc support to any small business to assist with their IT problems, but even better is to arrange a managed support contract so we can pro-actively look after your IT. Think of it as going for a regular health check instead of turning up to queue at the GP when you get something wrong which could have been prevented.

If you'd rather have no downtime and keep your computer systems healthy, talk to us about our IT support services. Give me a call on 01604 420057 or click here to ping me an email and let's see how we can help you.

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More about Alison Mead ...

Alison loves bookkeeping and supporting bookkeepers. She has been helping clients to be better bookkeepers in Sage 50 for over 24 years and has been Xero Accredited in accounts and payroll for a number of years too.

She specialises in a very unique hand-holding method of training, helping bookkeepers and business owners to use their accounts software as and when they need support in setting up and producing their invoices, reports and financial information.

Alison combines her role at Silicon Bullet with her Forever Living network marketing businesses and is often to be seen at business networking meetings as she likes to keep busy.

You know what they say: if you want something done well ask a busy person!

Telephone:	01604 420057
Website:	https://www.siliconbullet.com

IT Support: Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?

Paul says this all the time ...