After spending a bunch of time on a tech call today and eventually having to call Dell to solve a wireless printer connectivity problem, I was reminded that tech problems are often easier to solve if you take the time to ‘simplify’ first.
So, the problem was, the printer set-up program kept getting stuck at the point just before it could identify the wireless access point. The Dell tech said, “disconnect the second printer that’s connected via USB to the PC”. If I had been following my own advice, this second printer would have already been disconnected, and the call to Dell would have been unnecessary because the setup program would have worked properly.
Simplify, simplify. It’s not important to know why the conflict between the connected printer and the Dell setup program exists, because my job was to solve the wireless connection problem. So, when you’re trying to troubleshoot this kind of thing, disconnect (or shut down) everything that’s not essential to the problem you’re tying to solve, and perhaps things will go better for you. They certainly would have in this instance…
