“Is your computer connected to a power outlet? Yes? Could you please unplug it and plug it back in for me?”
“the serial output from my test unit turns into garbage and it happens at completely random times!”
“Did you make sure they were plugged in all the way?”
“WHAT?!?! ARE YOU SUGGESTING I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING?!?!”
Some time later
“Yeah, it turned out to be the serial connection was loose.”
It is worse in HW prototyping where sometimes loose wire is all over the place
“Where does this green wire go?”
I appreciate HW engineers and techs. I’m not afraid of datasheets, circuit diagrams, or a mso and they’re always patient enough to explain things to me so I can make the rocks behave. Or at least tell me how to go from diagram to board lol.
That sounds like a classical OSI layer 0 problem.
As someone that works writing firmware for SAS devices… it’s happened all too many times
At a former job, there was one – and only one – lady in customer service who would actually reboot and do all the basic troubleshooting steps before calling IT. If we heard from her, we knew something was legitimately broken. Oddly enough, I’m married to her now. Best decision I ever made.
