Argggh The Cable Company

[Pete_C]

Got home yesterday and went to turn on my cable and the box wouldn't turn on.

Even the vampire light on it was dead.

Unplugged it and waited sixty seconds and plugged back in.

No four bars, no progress bar, no boot sequence , no lights.

Disconnected it and tried it in a different outlet , still no lights.

Took it to the cable company customer service office (ten minute drive; easier than navigating the phone menu, being put on hold for an operator, transferred three times and having a tech scheduled to come out in a day or two to tell me the box is dead and he has to get a new one).

Told customer service rep what was up.

She plugged it in , said yes it is dead and handed me a new box (recorded new serial number as well as old one ). Told me to call number on receipt when I got it installed to reset and activate it.

Went home hooked it up and called in . Box boots but says "not available yet, stay tuned" on all channels. Try automated activation, no luck. Call back and wait for operator . She has me unplug box, wait , plug it in and still no go. Has me swap a and b cables (since now they no longer use B line) and does it again. No go. She then tells me she cannot reset it again or it will blow up; to call back in an hour or schedule a service visit.

Knowing that my box will not blow up, I realize she is just frustrated and not willing to admit she cannot figure it out and is unwilling to call a supervisor.

(The other box, the wifes is working just fine so I know it is not related to the cable. But I want my box working I do not want to have to watch Bones and some other lame prime time soap.).

So I go online to kill time and wait.

I call back and get a different operator. I explain what I have been through; he tries to reset it. No go, then he says there is a note that I am confused about the A/B cable setup. I explain about the swapping cables and he says put them back where they were. I do and boom it works. He checks my options and reactivates all the channels I am supposed to have (everything but sports and spanish). No need for a service call.

Sounds to me like the first rep got confused by my having two boxes so I can watch one thing while the OL watches something else. Or I can watch something while she sleeps or we can fall asleep watching a movie or whatever. She must have been re starting the wrong box; or just not known how to go through the proceedure.

But the line about not being able to do it again or my box would explode was a real laugh.

[JDoors]

... he says there is a note that I am confused about the A/B cable setup.

Ahh! So it was YOUR fault all along!

Good thing she gave up on you before you s'ploded the box.

[Honda_Boy]

I've found that most tech support like that is worthless. My old laptop was overheating like crazy and I pretty much knew why. I did the online tech support deal and they kept telling me to check the BIOS and screw with all these settings and I told em no, that ain't the problem. I gave up on em. Couple a days later, it overheated and shut down while testing something on it. I didn't even turn it back on. Grabbed my PC repair tools, tore it apart, changed the thermal paste on CPU, problem SOLVED. Stupid tech support.

[JSKY]

Telephone Tech Support Worthless???

Now how many times have I heard that one...... LOL

Glad you got things going without taking out the whole neighborhood *U*

[KeithLDick]

That sounds pretty typical... She wasn't trained very well or she just doesn't get the Technical end of things and has problems reading the stuff on her screen that tells her what procedure to go through in the situation...

hahaha

[irregularjoe]

"But I want my box working I do not want to have to watch Bones and some other lame prime time soap.)."

LOL

Yeah tell me about it. I usually have to listen to "Idol", "The biggest loser," that stupid "Race" show, and a few other inane brain cell destroyers.

I'm usually cooking during all this (the kitchen is adjacent to the living room where the TV is).

She says it's a stress reliever for her, so I don't complain too much. But I thank God everynight for Tivo!

Edited June 6, 2009 by irregularjoe

[Pete_C]

Well that box lasted less than a month.

It began glitching (tch tch noises, green and black pixels, freezing up) last week. At first I thought it was just the Texas heat getting to the line amps (repeaters) but then I realized the other box was not having any issues.

Tried swapping boxes and box A has problems in both locations box b has no problems either location.

Tried swapping A/B cables at both ends just to be sure.

Problem got worse on friday, and by late Saturday it would make tch tch noise, and go blank. Eventually it got to the "this station should be available shortly" on all stations.

Discovered that if I tuned it to a station,tuned the volume way down , and turned it off and waited it would come on and work (in the off position).

I called but they had already closed for the weekend.

Suffered through Sunday with it in off position (quick turn on change station , lower volume , shut off and watch program) but eventually even that developed the glitch.

Took it in first thing this morning after dropping OL at the doctor for her quarterly checkup.

No line, no arguement that they needed to send tech to confirm problem. Made note of what I told them and gave me a new (rebuilt) box. I asked about activating it and the customer service rep said she had already done that; to just take it home and hook it up within an hour and I would be golden. Guess what ; she was right. A second one that knows how to do her job.

Of course now I will have to re configure it, make my favorites list, etc; but sure is good to have my "Den" tuner back (Spent most of Sunday with DVDs playing).

[JDoors]

Discovered that if I tuned it to a station,tuned the volume way down , and turned it off and waited it would come on and work (in the off position).

Uber Tech!

Took it in first thing this morning after dropping OL at the doctor for her quarterly checkup.

No line, no arguement that they needed to send tech to confirm problem. Made note of what I told them and gave me a new (rebuilt) box. I asked about activating it and the customer service rep said she had already done that; to just take it home and hook it up within an hour and I would be golden. Guess what ; she was right. A second one that knows how to do her job.

Or-r-r-rr ... She saw all the personal notations on your account and figured you weren't worth messin' around with.

[Pete_C]

Yes, I wonder what happened to that girl who told me my box was going to 'splode.

Of course it could be that that box was defective from the get go and that was why it had so much trouble being set up.

This one has been on all day and not a glitch.

Just brought up onboard diagnostic

General status => no errors returned

Signal To Noise Ration 35dB (Good)

Carrier lock count 1 (Has not dropped connection )

Error count 00000

PCR lock confirmed

Memory status 0 Fail

Also, when turned off this one actually turns off, no signal going through. Hooray, no more mystery voices coming out of the TV in the middle of the night when everything is supposedly off.

(That had been driving me nuts; I finally had turned to tuning the darned thing to the classical music station before I went to sleep so that when I woke up in the middle of the night I did not hear voices in the other room. Until I realized it was coming from the TV it had really freaked me out. )

[JDoors]

Whoa, I don't remember you sayin' it was playing while off. That WOULD freak me out (sort of, since I hear voices sometimes anyway ... whole 'nother story though).

Sure sounds like an obvious clue that box was defective though.

[Pete_C]

Whoa, I don't remember you sayin' it was playing while off. That WOULD freak me out (sort of, since I hear voices sometimes anyway ... whole 'nother story though).

Sure sounds like an obvious clue that box was defective though.

My thoughts exactly. This explains why it had such a problem the first round as part of the"activation" process involves turning it off. Since that did not work the first girl had had me unplug it; that should have been a red flag that the box was at fault and not me. (None the less , on the first box when the second tech brought up the file he said there was a note that I was old and confused and couldn't tell the A and B cables apart and should have a technician set things up. I explained that even if I were blind I could tell which cable had the raised ridge and he agreed that either cable should let him activate the box. ).