Network Troubleshooting Tips – Part I
An absolutely essential skill for any network engineer is
knowing how and where to find answers to questions. The
easiest thing to do if you get stuck is to put a question
on a discussion forum and wait for the answer.

Is this always the best way though?

I have been there myself and to be honest, I have just
gone onto a board, posted the question and waited for
somebody else to answer it for me. There may be a better
way though.

Firstly, you don’t want to be thought of as the board pain
which is the person who continually posts question after
question, shows no attempt to research their own problems
and never thanks people for their time.

Second. If you don’t take the time to find out answers or
to find out how to find out the answers you are going to
come to a point where you are stuck one day and people
are not there to help you.

Here is what I recommend you do if you are stuck on a
problem you need the answer to:

First – define the issue. Is the problem where you see it
or is something else behind it. You can often be called
by a user who claims that the network is down when it is
just his PC or they can call you saying that their PC is
down when it is actually the entire network.

Second – can you articulate what is actually happened, if
there have been any changes recently and what steps you
have taken so far to resolve it?

Third – have you read up on any books, documentation or
spoken to any other people about the problem? The best
resource I have found is obviously Google.com

next time I am going to tell you how to get the best out
of discussion boards.