Hardware Rollout Job - Pointers Appreciated

BazMcG

Hi guys & gals,

I am in Australia at the moment and I managed to land my first official job in the IT sector. I am really excited about it even though its quite basic but I am just glad to finally get on the ladder.

Basically it involves rolling out laptops to schools in and around Sydney and it mentioned the possibility of repairing problems if they arrise. I feel more than competent in installing software, riggng up the hardware etc. I am just wondering about the following.

They asked me in the interview some questions about what would I do if the laptop doesn't turn on etc and I coped well and answered accordingly. I am curious however what sort of problems do you think I will bump into on a regular basis? Like will it be problems with software, hardware or something more complex?

I have my days training tomorrow and I get the impression I wont be presented with too many challenging problems but I thought I would get a few responses on here from anyone who has done this work before.

Thanks guys,
Baz

CTU_Agent

Hey, First of all, welcome to the wonderful world of I.T !

In response to your concerns, it really depends on what stage the laptops are at when you are rolling them out.

i.e Will you be installing the O/S onto bare metal? Are the laptops new out of the box? What are the software/configuration requirements.

In the hardware side of things there should not be too many issues, perhaps the odd faulty hard disk or power supply along the way maybe...

Good point to note is make sure you have all you need before you arrive on site and look like a monkey without the correct tools, e.g boot disks, drivers, cables, and of course internet access on another device should you need to look up something obscure like an error code or driver issue.

Best of luck, if you need any help we're always here !

Bg

BazMcG

CTU_Agent wrote: »

Hey, First of all, welcome to the wonderful world of I.T !

In response to your concerns, it really depends on what stage the laptops are at when you are rolling them out.

i.e Will you be installing the O/S onto bare metal? Are the laptops new out of the box? What are the software/configuration requirements.

In the hardware side of things there should not be too many issues, perhaps the odd faulty hard disk or power supply along the way maybe...

Good point to note is make sure you have all you need before you arrive on site and look like a monkey without the correct tools, e.g boot disks, drivers, cables, and of course internet access on another device should you need to look up something obscure like an error code or driver issue.

Best of luck, if you need any help we're always here !

Bg

Hi mate,

Thanks for the quick response, I shouldn't really be up this late have to be awake in 5 hours but ah well..

I am not sure what stage the laptops will be at, I would presume they would have the OS installed already however I am not basing that on anything substantial, I would imagine the process would take a lot longer if I had to install OS on them all, but as I said I don't know.

In terms of software I might have to install Office, adobe maybe some of that stuff, but yet again I have no idea. I have my training which runs 9-5 tomorrow so I should get all the information I need then. I was wondering about what I needed to bring with me, they never mentioned anything about supplying me with boot disks, drivers and things that I might need.

I have my phone with me that has 3G so hopefully if anything radical comes up I can get what I need. And I'll bring my notebook with me just in case.

I'll grab some sleep, go to the training and give ya an outline of what they tell me! Thanks again for the advice though mate.

Baz

BazMcG

Turns out i'm working away on Lenovo x130e's!

Actually a lot more hands on stuff than I thought, first shift tomorrow should be very interesting!

Dealing with taking the laptop apart and replacing some LCD wires and possibly some delta fans!

Wont be dealing with any software, apart from a database they have supplied me with serial numbers and stuff! Exciting times