Customer Service
You have a ticket from the teacher stating her machine does not work? How would you handle this ticket?
Ask if/when this is a good time to work on the ticket with the customer
Ask the customer what the problem is
Duplicate the problem with the teacher
Resolve the problem if possible; escalate if not
Verify system is working with the teacher and notify her the ticket will be closed
close ticket
A teachers machine has crashed, and you determine the drive is dead. How do you handle the situation knowing the teacher maybe upset about losing his data?
Relate to the customer/empathy
Might say check network for a backup
Offer future ways to prevent total data loss (copy to flash drive, backup to network, backup to cloud)
Follow-up; what if the customer asks to speak to a manager?
give out managers information & notify your manager
If there was one thing you could teach or have ever computer user know starting today, what would it be?
this is open ended. You be the judge;
don't open email from people you don't know; dont click on links; don't share passwords;
Technical -- software
In k-12, we have both teachers and student who look for new and interesting software. Sometimes that comes with a price, malware or virus infection. What tools have you or do you use to clean off malware & virus
Should say something about an Antivirus product
say something about malware removal kits (cc-cleaner)
Follow-up this one; what was the worse infection you had to clean and how did you do it
maybe boot to safe-mode; boot to usb drive; had to reimage;
Have you ever develop an image for machines such as a lab, library, office suite? What did you use?
Windows servers; SCCM; ghost; KACE; - lots of answers
Follow-up: how do you maintain the image going forward as patches and updates are released
Technical -- hardware
I like to do these with a machine. put 5-10 labels on the machine ask them to ID memory slots (and types), processor, power supply, video cards, PCIex1 and x16 slots, -- trying to think of some;
a user is complaining they cant connect to wireless, how do you troubleshoot;
1) make sure the wifi card is turned on on the computer (slide the latch)
2) make sure the card is enabled in the OS (bottom right)
3) Make sure the user is connecting to the right wireless network (SSID)
a) delete network and re-add
4) make sure the user is typing the credentials right (try email if they are the same to verify)
5) escalate
A computer doesn't appear to come on; troubleshoot;
-- trying to find out if they know to start at the beginning and not in the middle
1) verify power (wall and power strip and cables)
2) verify monitor is on
3) power on machine -- (if the mention post, throw the question below in now)
if no power; dead power-supply
if power, but no video -- check video cable; check monitor --
...they got it if they get that far correctly
Describe POST and what it is does;
1) Power-on Self Test;
2) machine is verifying physical status of its innards (memory, motherboard, video card, some others)
What does a machine do that fails POST
1) beeps and shuts down;
Technical -- OS
How do you join a computer to a domain
system properties, join domain (or right click computer/properties...) if they get that far, they have good idea.
How do you boot to safe mode and when would you do it
f8 at boot; driver issue after updating hardware drive is typical reason; usually, made a config change that was bad, have to clean it up
How do you edit the registry on windows; when would you? are you comfortable doing it?
regedit/regedt32; when: specific instructions by vendor or microsoft to fix issue; everyone should be cautious using regedit!
How do you add a printer to computer
they should give you one or two paths to add printer wizard
Where are the users' profile stored on a win7 box
(c:\users)
What is your favorite OS right now?
Technical -- Network (yes, ipconfig is that important)
How do you find a computer's IP address
ipconfig
How do you find a computer's default gateway
ipconfig /all
How do you have a computer update its IP address
ipconfig /release & ipconfig /renew
A customer is saying she can't get to the internet. You've verified the physical connections & IP address information is correct, what are your next steps;
Might say verify physical cables are plugged in a the lights are green anyhow
Use ping: ping the gateway, then ping the site
use nslookup or dig to see if DNS is working (nslookup www.google.com)
use tracert to find the error on the pathway
What does it mean when a windows machine gets a 169.254.x.x address; Why is this usually bad?
No DHCP server was found and DHCP is enabled for the device; Customer is likely unable to access resources; This is not a NIC problem
Technical -- Cabling
Have you done cabling before? What are the two main standards for CAT5e/CAT6
568a/568b
What are the 8 colors in a twisted pair cable
Orange, Orange/White, Blue, Blue/White, Green,Green/White, Brown, Brown/White
What is the maximum distance of Cat5e on 100M network
328 feet; might say 300 feet -- close enough for practical world
