As it looks like a lot of us are going to be working from home for the forseeable future I thought it might be an idea to setup a Technical Support thread.
I'll pop in as much as I can but please help if you can but first a plea.
If the IT department at your workplace is anything like the one I work in and you've gone from a small group of homewokers to pretty much everyone please be patient and kind to your IT colleagues, they'll be working flat out to get and keep you up and running during the situation we find ourselves in and machines very often run at their own pace so please be patient.
Here's some tips to kick off
- If you are having problems connecting to a site or service such as your VPN try unplugging your router from power for 2 minutes, plug it back in and wait for the lights on the front to stabilise (if you are using a BT Hub wait for the light on the front to turn blue), if things still aren't right, talk to your IT support.
- Depending on the capacity of your connection if you find that things are running slower than usual check your wi-fi strength to your device and also you might to ask if anyone in the house is streaming or gaming as UHD streams and game downloads can slow your connection because they attempt to use as much bandwidth as possible so ask if they can do it later (tip: you can log into the Netflix site and adjust the bandwidth use, the direct link to the page is https://www.netflix.com/HdToggle but make sure you click Save after making a change)
- If you are prompted to install updates on your work provided machines, do it as soon as you can as these usually include security updates and performance tweaks so installing them will keep you and your employer's data safer and benefit you.
- If you use the resume feature on your notebook (call it a laptop if your must) by just closing the lid, make sure you do a full restart at least every couple of days otherwise the machine may slow down and other odd behaviour may result, it also ensures any security updates take effect.
If your connection goes down and a router reboot doesn't fix it, call your Internet Service Provider, if they have to get Openreach to come and see you, note Openreach's advice about COVID-19 on this page https://www.openreach.com/covid-19-coronavirus
I'll leave it there for now, please post your technical queries below
