Custom PC worked in the lab, failed on site - and so did the angry client

"He took us back to an early moment in his career, when he worked for an outfit that configured Windows 98 PCs as "data collectors" for its clients. As part of his job, Gerald built PCs and provided field support. In this story, he built a new data collector, checked that it worked with the usual round of tests, and left it for someone else to install because he had another job to do elsewhere for a different client."

"That visit was interrupted by his boss, who Gerald said "reamed me out for allowing a non-functional system to leave the shop." After the criticism stopped, Gerald's boss ordered him to fix the stricken PC, ASAP, even though it was 100 km away by car. "The boss man said go, so I went," Gerald told On Call."

"About an hour and a half later, I arrived to diagnose the recalcitrant PC. The client was literally hopping mad and asking how I could be so stupid, because his firm was losing money. Gerald got to work and inspected the PC, which was on the shop floor, connected to power and peripherals. It booted and worked well but couldn't reach the network."

"A check of devices installed showed the network card, "and a ping to home worked... but nothing outside the box itself was reachable." Gerald decided the only thing to do was take the PC back to the office for more tests, so he started unplugging the peripherals. "Out came the power cord, display cable, keyboard, mouse..." and then he noticed the network cable wasn't plugged in. "It was neatly coiled and taped to a support column," Gerald told On Call, making it very eas"

A Windows 98 “data collector” PC was built and tested, then left for someone else to install. The system later failed to function for the client, prompting urgent travel to diagnose the issue. The PC powered on and worked, but network connectivity failed outside the local area. Device checks showed the network card, and a ping to the local host succeeded while external addresses were unreachable. Gerald took the PC back to the office for further testing by unplugging peripherals, then discovered the network cable was not connected. The cable had been neatly coiled and taped to a support column.

Read at theregister