Mr. Handy

When I just tried to turn on my laptop, I got nothing. Well, it started up, but did not boot up. Something like that gives a person a terribly ominous feeling. Stuff break from time to time, and if it is electronic, it opens up a black-hole which sucks in your time and money. (The black-hole analogy is not a very good one, because whatever opens up also expels a lot of stress and distress.) I then proceeded to do the normal preliminary (and superficial) fixes: I reseated the RAM (this is a powerful fix), I took out the hard drive and put it back in again and finally I cleared some dust from the fan. Still nothing. I then proceeded to the next stage (usually the stages are reversed, but in expensive things like laptops, you want to save this one for number two): I hit the laptop on a few strategic places. Still nothing: it turns on, but the screen remains blank and the keyboard is unresponsive. Defeated, I turned the laptop on its side and let if fall between my hands for a few times for no particular reason. I shall call this stage three, because even though it is still quite clearly stage two, the manner it which I proceeded was much gentler. When I turned the laptop on after that, it worked.

I have fixed many things by just hitting it in the right place. People don't always believe me, but it works. I acknowledge that it is not the best way to generally solve problems, but if I had done all the trouble to take the laptop back to the shop (assuming it is still under warranty), Murphy's Law dictates that the laptop would have behaved when they turned it on, but go blank again after I grudgingly (al be it falsely relieved) returned home. It is all about applying the correct tools and techniques to a particular problem.

On a related note, when I then next turned on my desktop computer, I got a message telling me that booting into Windows failed and that I must reinstall the corrupted file (which probably would have boiled down to reinstalling the entire operating system). Had I listened like a good little dog, I would have lost a lot of time and would probably have become more negative and agitated for the duration of the day. A simple reboot fixed the problem. It seems that the gremlins are afoot again today.

Please note: the information supplied in this post is purely informational and meant for entertainment. No opinion expressed here should be substituted for the opinion of diagnosis of a professional technician, unless you have sound reason to believe that the technician in question is a thieving opportunist and jerk and/or an idiot.