Arrrgh!!!

He worried that he had not plugged the connections in correctly, so Son #2 checked, and said that everything was fine. But it still didn't work. Son #2 wanted to defer to Son #3 (who was away in Bangkok), but he felt it was something simple that Son # 3 could correct in less than half an hour.

Yesterday was the big day. Son # 3 arrived, checked things out, and looked puzzled. He worked for about three hours trying to figure out just why the network wasn't networking. When he finally had to close up shop for the evening, he was at the point where he was certain it was a software problem, but he didn't have the faintest idea where to look.

When he returns, he's going to bring his laptop and hook it into the network, to determine if the problem lies with the older computer. Beyond that, he's not sure why this isn't working. His only other suggestion was that we should call customer service for Dell, to see if they could tell us where to look.

Son # 3 says that things that normally take five minutes anywhere else always take much longer on my computers, but this is the most difficult problem he's faced to date.

I think I'll just have another glass of wine and chill out. Maybe they will figure it out before I have to call Dell.

UPDATE: Cop Car has instructed me to tell you that my woes have been solved! My IT guys got us up and running a few days later, and I'm as happy as a pig in a mud hole, so mark this entry as "Closed."