To log tickets or ask first. That is the question.

[adam1991]

[topic split from: Receiving Message - All tuners are currently in use]

(Shotgunning is fine, but) I despair for the world when they won't do the simple and straightforward thing (of opening a ticket) at all.

Ceton has a process for helping their customers in situations like this. And they are far, far better equipped to do so.

[STC]

Hmm, I kinda see what you're saying, but it's not really shotgunning IMO.
It is one of the good functions of a forum to aid a product's well being.
Pretty much any forum that deals with any electronic item has questions asked upon it regarding operability.
It is one of the essences of why a forum is here.
I can imagine every little MC nuance causing a ticket with any manufacturer and it would just bog them down and delay everything trying to legitimately get through.

It's kind of like asking your buddies "Hey, did this happen to you? If so what did you do about it?", which is a very natural thing to do.

[adam1991]

Well, for example: I work for a world-known, very large organization, in a technical sales capacity. I know quite a bit about quite a lot of things involving said organizations products and customer environment, but I don't know everything. Anyway, said organization has customer-facing processes and procedures designed to support the customer, small or large. These processes are carefully structured and run.

But the customers think to themselves, that can't possibly be a good enough route for problem-solving. It'll probably take too long for me to get hold of someone who knows and/or cares, if at all. Certainly no one can help me better than the local guy who sells me stuff; all I have to do is yell and scream at *him*, and he will shortcut right through everything and get right to the one person who can provide me with *immediate* help, so that I don't have to suffer through sitting on the phone for five minutes.

And so with that thought in mind, the customer goes straight to the sales critter, who lights his hair on fire and runs around, and tries to do exactly that: shortcut the process and engage anyone and everyone he can think of, outside the process.

In fact, all the customer and salescritter are doing are *lengthening* the time to get things resolved. The processes have evolved over many, many years with great care. Have some issues fallen through the cracks? Yes, it's happened--but that's VERY quick and easy to correct, SO LONG AS THEY STARTED THE PROCESS CORRECTLY IN THE FIRST PLACE. If you can give me a ticket number, I can tell you everything about the problem and where it is in resolution, and engage whomever I need to engage, all the way up through *very* high in the organization.

What, you never started the process and you never got a ticket number? Then all you're doing is pushing a rope. Good luck with that. You're now trying randomly to solve the problem. Sure, every now and then a blind squirrel finds a nut, and twice a day a broken clock shows the right time. That doesn't mean all is well.

Ceton has a superb technical support staff. If their card is not behaving according to the documentation, OPEN A TICKET. You may also shotgun it out and come here, but without engaging the people who know, using their established process, all you're doing is lighting your hair on fire and trying to push a rope.

[STC]

We can just agree to disagree then

[STC]

I think you may need to open a ticket about your last post

[newfiend]

I think it depends on the situation...
For example...
I just built a new HTPC... Everything went pretty smooth... Had to do a small case mod but not big deal I had the tools... but I digress... I had a problem with my Ceton USB. It made my Motherboard hang at the BIOS level (EVGA splash screen) at boot. If I unplugged the USB cable the PC booted up just fine... Plug the USB cable back in after windows booted, it worked fine... reboot the PC and it would lock up again. It took me 3 days of trying every BIOS related setting I could think of, installing the latest USB Hotfix from MS... (Yes there is a new one and if you have a Ceton USB you should install it)... I finally gave up trying to figure it out on my own. I contacted EVGA first and ran a few tests they wanted me to try and they thought I may have a bad board and issued me an RMA. Once I narrowed it down to just the Ceton USB and all other USB devices worked fine I contacted Ceton and submitted a Ticket. I thought of posting here to see if someone else with a similar board had the same issue. But I worked with Ceton to resolve the problem. (They did fix it too!!)

I can see where shot gunning can and does sometimes help... There are other people with similar hardware/software that can offer help or suggestions. In a case where it could be a simple fix or something overlooked... Something similar to the OP situation I can see where posting here before contacting Ceton might help and limit the over loading of the Ceton support staff... If they got a ticket every time their card burped I can see where that would get to be a pain.

These forums are designed to help. I don't see a problem with posting any question related to HTPC here... If we can't help we can direct them to people that can... And that’s what Adam did. Adam is right though that everyone wants the "quick fix and wants it NOW"... And sometimes that just isn't possible.

In my situation it took a week of sending in repots and files Ceton wanted from my build... but in a couple days they had a new firmware for my USB unit that fixed the problem. Bravo Ceton! After a week though I began to get frustrated so I posted here as well only to have a fix the next day in my e-mail. I had exhausted all other avenues I could think of. I contacted EVGA, Ceton and Ran through my BIOS more times than I care to count.

Without forums like these I think I would have given up on HTPC a long time ago. But the combined knowledge of us all has helped us all at some point or another and that’s what makes this and other sites a great resource.
newfiend~

[STC]

My PC wont turn on. I should open a ticket with Ceton as it has to be my InfiniTV.

[newfiend]

My PC wont turn on. I should open a ticket with Ceton as it has to be my InfiniTV.

Check the power supply first.. also check the wall outlet and the fuse/breaker box.. it could be multiple things...Wait..
If your PC isn't working... How did you POST that last question??

[STC]

When it comes to HTPC's there are many components that go to make up the whole thing. In this case, for instance, it is logical (if you don't know the cause of a specific problem) to ask around as to the best course of action. That action may indeed be to open a ticket with a certain manufacturer, or maybe not and it's deemed a small 'user error' and had nothing to do with the manufacturers hardware, but rather a config setting in the OS.

[adam1991]

My PC wont turn on. I should open a ticket with Ceton as it has to be my InfiniTV.

hehehehe Cute. But is that functionality documented by Ceton for the product you bought from them?

If you're running a Q, then yes, by all means open a ticket with Ceton!

As I said very specifically, if the product is not doing what Ceton documented it to do--and that appears to be the case here--then follow their process to send them the information using the logging mechanism. Their logging mechanism provides incredible amounts of information that only Ceton can analyze.

And maybe they will find out that there's nothing wrong with their hardware/firmware/drivers, and it something with the host PC. But chances are very good they'll be able to narrow that down tremendously.

I work with a product that field techs by themselves can only do so much with--the entire system was built from the ground up around a data gathering mechanism, a mechanism to deliver that data to a central location, analysis software to present the data in a meaningful way, and second and third level engineering resources to understand the analysis and direct the field service tech to what may be the otherwise unfathomable source of the problem.

And so having experienced Ceton tech support firsthand, I get what they do and what they have to offer their customers--especially for a consumer electronics product. It makes me not regret one bit that I paid $413 for the four tuner card. The hardware is good, and so is the software, but when something's wrong they have the ability to know it AND they have the will to resolve it.

But that works only if they know about the problem...

[STC]

So in the OPs case, why didn't he first open a ticket with Microsoft? It was MC that was throwing up the error.

[adam1991]

Because the behavior was tied directly to the card.

Witness anther thread here, where the poor guy came in here assuming that his setup was screwed up to the point where he was (and still is!) willing to do a scrape load AND re-flash his BIOS, etc, etc.. He was chasing all sorts of deep-dive ghosts, wasting his time, when in the end--once someone convinced him to contact Ceton--it very quickly was discovered to be a bad card, which Ceton is replacing.

Again, I'm not saying shotgunning is a bad idea. These forums do exist, and they do provide help. But completely to ignore opening a ticket with Ceton is ludicrous. I don't know where that reticence comes from. Are people just convinced that they don't know what they're doing in running Windows and therefore it must all be their fault? Are they convinced that no hardware they buy could ever be faulty? Are they convinced that contacting peripheral manufacturers is just a waste of time, no matter who it is?

Maybe that's it. No, you wouldn't call Microsoft if their latest, baddest Microsoft Mouse started screwing up, because you wouldn't get anywhere. Instead, you're on your own--hence the rise of forums like this.

But Ceton to date is way, WAY different. They *have* the setup in place to help people directly, *and* have shown the willingness and the capability. They *have* the deep knowledge of cable TV operations here, and they have relationships with the cable companies. They know how to talk to the cable operators *and* are willing to do so, should their data show that the cable operator is doing something wrong.

That's highly unusual in the market of consumer-oriented computer peripherals, but it's there. And it's why I don't regret one bit paying $413 for my four tuner Ceton card.

To ignore that, not to advise people to "open a ticket" and have Ceton look at the deep-dive data and eliminate or pinpoint things, is ludicrous. It's a tremendous benefit of owning the Ceton solution. Why ignore it or toss it away and risk wasting your time tearing your hair out and re-loading operating systems and changing motherboards and whatnot?

[mcewinter]

Nobody knows your system like you do and sometimes it takes asking the wrong questions to get to the right answers and might have an appearance of "shotgunning". As said above; that's a natural trait of forums in a general sense. Nobody should be discouraged to ask a question here.

This discussion would most likely have not taken place on TGB pre WEC which was more like one big happy chat room but that was mostly due to lack of modding (I miss Chris L.'s attitude).

[makryger]

I think it depends on the issue. Sometimes, there are problems that would in all likelyhood be issues that other users have encountered before.in that case, it may be fastest to just post in a forum. It also has the added benefit of helping others who experience the problem later on. By having the question and solution on the internet, it makes the fixing process much faster for the user and future users, and potentially reduces tech support calls for the company. But sometimes, the issue is so system specific, that you need to contact the company.

[newfiend]

^^ that was my issue. My Ceton USB wasn't working at boot.. It locked up the motherboard. I went through all the steps evga and ceton wanted but I still had the problem. It turned out to be a firmware incompatibility between the ceton USB and "my" specific brand of mainboard. Once I installed the new firmware on the USB unit all is well. I posted here originally for suggestions.. In case someone else had a similar setup and may have had a similar problem. I thought someone could suggest a course of action I hadn't thought of.. And I got two suggestions I hadn't thought of. It was finally fixed by ceton, but the info is still on this board in case someone else attempts a similar build and they have the same issue. At least now they would know to contact ceton for an updated firmwareto fix the issue. The forum exists for a reason.. It's here to help an it does just that.

Sent from my SGH-i937 using Board Express

[STC]

Because the behavior was tied directly to the card.

EXACTLY This is my point. He did not know, so asked here, and WE (you) pointed him in the right direction. Mission accomplished, job well done, pat on back.
You then flamed him a little about the fact he should of actually known what to do in the first place when all things considered, he did the right thing in the first place!

This is one of the reasons why we are here

[barnabas1969]

Wow. I didn't read every word of every post above, but here is my view...

I was once an electronics technician for a very large semiconductor manufacturer. My responsibilities included the diagnosis/repair/maintenance of various mainframe computers, robotics equipment, lab equipment, and all the way down to the lowly line printer.

I completely agree that people should not mindlessly "shotgun" equipment. However, I also feel that people often get faster answers here than they get from Ceton's support channel.

Let's face it, most people are not very good at diagnosing a problem. Most problems are probably caused by a mistake in setting up something. Lots of folks here can help point someone in the right direction without the need of opening a ticket with Ceton and waiting up to a day for a response. But, when something is obviously a problem that can ONLY be dealt with by Ceton, I have no problem directing that person to open a ticket with Ceton. Ceton's service is very, very good. I have no complaint about their service. In fact, it is better than most companies I deal with in a professional capacity. But, there are plenty of things we (the users on this forum) can help people with... without the need to bother Ceton.