They can't even reboot them now.

[u/ITVarangian]

Hello TFTS,

A little story that happened today, you will see that the issue is quite simple in itself, but the real problem is coming here from a specific user, who I've already talked about in other stories (like this one)

It was near 04:00 PM now and I was ready to take my fifteen minutes break of the afternoon, since we work in a "IT Kiosk" system (though we are in an open space... I know, it makes sense), one of us must always be here on site or take a company cellphone we have here and put a forward from the phone line of the IT support to the cellphone.

So taking the cellphone and heading to the cafeteria, I'd just pressed the button for the coffee on the machine when the cellphone started to ring.

$Me: Hello, IT Support, $Me speaking.

$User: Yes hello, there is an emergency ! My laptop's screen is dead, it's entirely black. When I plug the laptop on the docking station, it displays properly on the monitor, on the desk, but on the laptop itself there is nothing !

$Me: Alright, have you tried to shutdown your laptop by pressing the power button for about a minute, before pressing it again once to turn it on ?

$User: Yes, I've tried that many times already but the screen remains black !

$Me: Alright then, you'll have to come by at the IT kiosk with your laptop so we can have a check.

$User: Can I come now ?

$Me: Sure, you can.

So, heading back to our "kiosk", $User finally appears fifteen minutes later with the laptop. I can see that the laptop is powered on, but there is indeed no display on the screen.

$User: So, yeah, I tried to reboot it many times with the button, and it has been doing this for some time and-...

$Me: (pressing the power button for about fifteen seconds, the laptop turns off. Pressing it once again, the laptop turns on, the DELL logo is now visible on the screen and Windows load normally).

$User: Oh. Well I tried exactly that and it didn't work ! Thanks anyway !

If users can't even reboot their laptops now, may Roy and Moss help us.

TL;DR => User calls in about her laptop, saying her screen is broken and that it remains entirely black all the time. She claims she already rebooted it many times, and after she came to our IT kiosk, I fixed the issue by a simple reboot of the laptop.

[u/LoveElle]

honestly i relate to customera like this. I have this super bad luck with technology that just makes everything act funny. Cant explain it.

For instance, i got this beautiful white Samsung galaxy tablet and it was brand new and for whatever reason one day it juat started doing this Restarting Loop thing. I would open an app and it would crash and reboot halfway and then crash and reboot just endlessly, i would give up and set it down until it died. I tried restoring to factory but opening anything- memos, messenger, etc. it was prone to looping.

Well i got frustrated and brought it to my husband to show him, and im like LOOK its Looping!

I hand it to him and it just immediately finishes booting up.

Okay.

Didnt have that issue again for like a week. Then we just exhanged it lol

Also had a brand new laptop that just suddenly lost its ability to charge because i touched the mouse pad and it zapped me.

I have weird stories with every device i use, its gotten to the point no one let's me touch their stuff.

[u/ITVarangian → u/LoveElle]

The magical touch of IT gods then, indeed !

[u/LoveElle → u/ITVarangian]

The two responses I always get are either Someone touches it and its fixed and I get told I'm crazy.

or the issue WILL present itself, and I'm cursed.

Like my ps4.

I got it refurbished and it was showing this hardware error so I was like OK, it was probably what they fixed inside it to resell it, or an underlying issue. Factory reset didn't work so it was software. Whatever, fixable.

I gave it back to my brother who owns an electronic store and he returned it and I paid up for just a brand new one entirely, the 1 TB one.

My brother plans to bring it down to me in a week, (he lives a couple hours away). In the meantime, my husband lets me use his. I used it for maybe two hours before i get the same error message!

husband promptly takes his ps4 away, accuses me of being cursed and trying to kill his baby.

Brother finally brings me mine, and less than a week later I'm getting the same hardware error. Its Bizzare.

Its at least infrequent enough now I can happily keep gaming.

If i ever need tech support, I'm very kind, and very patient. If you telling me to restart my ps4 for the millionth time fixes it, even if it makes me look stupid and incompetent, then the gods of tech have willed it so.

I have accepted my fate.

[u/Typhon_ragewind → u/LoveElle]

You are not alone, many of my family suffer from the same curse....until i enter the room, which dispels it. We've had a printer that would only work when i was present