Oh, and now, consider that when sombody who doesn't have a friend to call calls the tech support line, if they tried to fix it themselves... doesn't matter. If they seem intelegent... doesn't matter. If they know exactly what the problem is, and what steps should be taken to fix it... doesn't matter. The guy (or girl) on the other end of the phone knows what's wrong too... doesn't matter. They have a script to follow.

In other words, there's no help in narrowing down the problem in such a situation; unless you can /fix/ it yourself, time spent knowing what you're talking about is time wasted.