Tech-savvy staff (I’ll call them TSS) can be great for helping with your small, low-budget technology environment, but sometimes intentions are good, and results are bad.
The problem: A user had one ethernet wall outlet in their office and needed to plug in more than one ethernet device. The TSS asked me if I had any extra switches and I said, “No. You’ll need to purchase one.”
The (attempted) solution: The TSS went to the IT closet while I wasn’t there and grabbed an old router (which has a built-in switch) that wasn’t being used and installed it. The next day, the TSS called to say they were having network issues. When I got there, they showed me what they had done.
Why this solution caused problems: 1) routers usually have a static IP address and, in this case, had the same IP address as the current router. NOTE: it is bad news to have multiple devices on a network with the same IP address – especially the router! 2) The router was still configured as a DHCP Server and was giving out IP addresses to the other computers. Now, they had two routers giving out IP addresses, which may have further caused other network devices to have the same IP address. Chaos ensued.
The (real) solutions: 1) Go buy a new switch. 2) I left the router there but configured it to have a unique static IP address and removed the setting to act as a DHCP Server.
Just so I’m clear – TSS includes those that are helpful and those that “think” they know what they’re doing. Fortunately, the client has me on retainer, but it was an hour spent on something that should never have happened.

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