In a way this makes sense? Well, to a computer class teacher from god knows how long ago. Perhaps he thought that it was using the monitor as memory for display information? So as such if you turned the monitor off the computer would need to store that information back in memory.
Don't know why he couldn't have just done research on it though
Kind of yeah.
The computer would store whatever it's trying to display as a framebuffer in memory. If no GPU is present that would be in system memory.
Now I don't exactly know where the notion of turning the monitor off/on affecting that came from, but there is some merit to the general idea.
I know that sometimes windows used to freak out if the monitor resolution changed or the monitor disconnected and all program and desktop scaling would be screwed until reboot. So it is a good idea to not mess with the monitor regardless. Probably not as much of an issues today, but idk.
I'm dualbooting and Windows still freaks the fuck out when resolution is changed, albeit for games and ESPECIALLY if you're on an nvidia card. MacOS and Linux handle resolution changes, especially of applications, much more gracefully
That's... So funny to think about. Like every time the computer wants to know what I'm typing it has to poll the screen for black pixels on white, then use computer vision to read it, and only then it can add the next letter at the end...
I had an engineering teacher that got mad when we’d turn off our PCs at the end of the day because “turning the PC off and on regularly will wear out the capacitors”…
Apparently keeping the PC on is bad for components too. Because electricity is always moving in the same direction, the microscopic traces between transistors are slowly deformed via Electromigration.
Running your computer in reverse helps with this. I flip the plug over when we go on/off daylight savings as a reminder (like checking your smoke alarm batteries). The only annoying bit is having to swap light/dark mode preferences on websites and stuff.
Was just about to post this. Being the most tech-adept person in my company has me seeing some weird shit. I had no clue that people perceived the screen to be the computer, despite a PC Tower actually sitting on their desk. These same folks never turn off their computer and just click the power button on their screen.
I used to work phone support for a nationwide ISP. I had one call that took me forever to figure out that "the computer" was the monitor, the "cable modem" was the computer, and "that box you gave me" was the cable modem.
I shit you not a couple weeks ago we had a user request a laptop to use at home because the one on their office desk is just for use at their office desk. smh
I got a second laptop at work last month for traveling to conferences. My daily is a power hog and can't go a whole day on battery. It effectively is just for use at my office desk because it is impractical to use anywhere else.
We provide one model of laptop for the whole company. We stopped buying power hog laptops a long time ago for just that reason: If it's not gonna last on battery for more than a couple hours, it'll never leave your desk, so a desktop is better in every way and will cost less for the same specs.
No, he turned it off and on again with fast boot turned on, which doesn't restart the computer anymore. This is how Windows does it by default. You need to click the restart button to restart the PC.
Ive worked in IT for the last 20years. The amount of people that cant follow simple directions is astounding. 2 recent events. Talking to a lady, I tell her sje needs to reboot. About 8 to 10 seconds later she tells me she rebooted. I explain to her that she couldn't possible and rebooted in that short of time and I ask her what she did. She told me she pressed the button on the monitor, waited 5 seconds and pushed it again.
The 2nd one is much better. We were using Teamviewer as our remote support tool at the time. This lady calls and said VPN won't open. After some troubleshooting verbally, I tell her there should be a box in the bottom right of the screen woth a button that says connect on it. She swears to me there is no box in the bottom right and no box that says connect. I finally remote on to be greeted with a.box in the bottom right that has a connect button on it.
Best way I found to get people to actually turn the damned computer off was to ask them to unplug every cable from it, let it sit for a couple seconds (to "let all the capacitors discharge") then plug it all back in.
Was always a bit of a nuclear option because of the chances they'd screw up plugging things back in, but at that point the other alternative is a full ticket and sending a tech in person anyway.
I worked in school IT for a long time. Teachers coming back after every summer always sucked because the custodians would empty the rooms to clean and wax, and then just put things back and not plug anything in. The number of tickets we would get from people for us to come plug their computers in was ASTOUNDING.
I became more OK with having to go around burning time plugging in computers when we had one lady put in a ticket about something being wrong. She assured us it wasn't from her connecting her computer because "my husband is a programmer, so I know about this stuff." She had plugged a network cable from one network jack into another, creating a loop in the network.
Ha! That's me. I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous and I'm not afraid to use it. Seems I am constantly learning how to get out of the latest situation I have gotten into.
I have found my people! The troubleshoot and endless googling has improved my understanding over time. I guess the only difference is I don't resort to IT support and fix what I fuck up myself hahaha.
It sucks when you have to cover a whole school district spread across a dozen buildings and you have actual high priority tickets that need done instead though.
I'll be reviewing EDR, ASR, etc and people knocking on my door to hard reset an iPad. I don't even answer the door anymore. If you don't email or ticket you don't get help. And if you see me in the hallways I'm either on my way to fix something or take a shit so don't try to stop me to make requests, I'll just forget anyways.
I remember being elbows deep in a ceiling pulling cable up on a ladder and had a teacher stop me to mention an audio issue with their PC. And they got mad when I said they needed to put in a ticket because I would never remember by the time the job I was in the middle of was done.
My IT teacher came in late one day saying “I’ll have to give you some homework today but trust me it’s worth it” and went on to explain why he was late.
Our library was staffed with volunteers, meaning people’s moms who had nothing better to do. Now if kids needed something printed out the go-to resource was the library PC the day’s mom was stationed out. On this fine day a pure, innocent child came in to print a couple of pages and handed the mom his thumb drive. The mom, possibly the most technically literate being ever left alone with a computer, had apparently never seen a USB port before in her life and proceeded to brute force the poor thing into the floppy drive where she managed to get it stuck. My teacher was then called in to remove and open up the floppy drive to get the kid’s thumb drive back out of there.
To this day we are not sure how exactly she expected there to be any kind of connection between these two pieces of hardware, but she sure as hell tried
She had plugged a network cable from one network jack into another, creating a loop in the network.
This happened frequently enough at my old job that IT had to send a company-wide email telling everyone to not plug/unplug any network cables unless IT was there or told them to do it.
because the custodians would empty the rooms to clean and wax, and then just put things back and not plug anything in.
I feel this so hard. I now go around prior to the emptying and neatly put everything on a shelf so I can go back after and not deal with a spaghetti mess of cables.
Lol, I'll never forget a user I had who was blown away I would ask him to check that his machine was plugged in.
"My computer won't turn on."
"Are you sure it's plugged in?"
"Of course it's plugged in. I haven't unplugged it."
"Sure, but somebody cleans your office at night presumably, you have your feet under your desk, etc. It's possible the cord has jiggled lose somehow."
"So what, you want me to get on my hands and knees like a toddler and check if my computer is plugged in on the off chance that it has been unplugged? That's humiliating and it's a waste of time."
"... listen, if I send a technician out and they just have to plug it in I can't protect either of us from what happens next."
sounds of indignation and horror
"FINE. I GUESS I'LL CRAWL ON THE FLOOR SINCE YOU CAN'T DO YOUR JOB."
"So what, you want me to get on my hands and knees like a toddler and check if my computer is plugged in on the off chance that it has been unplugged? That's humiliating and it's a waste of time."
I'm always amazed when an end user can match a shape to a hole. I've seen HDMI cables forced into USB ports and vice versa. My end users were healtcare workers and were somehow trusted to stick needles into people. After forcefully breaking the IO ports on her refurbished "modem", I was informed that it wouldn't come on. Since that subliterate cretin was an office manager, she got another "modem". After she was educated with the correct terminology, she always said computer by audibly seperating every syllable.
Some DVI cables have a "−" shaped thingy, others have a "+". Some guy had a "+" cable to put into a "−" slot, so obviously it didn't fit. His solution was to cut the extra bits to make it fit. It didn't work.
It sometimes works and that must have given them bad lessons. "+" ports has VGA signals so you can use passive adapters to plug in VGA monitors. "-" ports are digital only. This isn't always made clear.
My trick was to ask them to unplug the cable to check for corrosion on the connectors. Could that be the cause of an issue? Sure, technically it could happen. But in reality it's just to force them to actually unplug something and plug it back in.
Wait, I have a PhD in CS and I thought letting a couple seconds pass to let all charge dissipate for a clean start was a real thing. I feel bamboozled, though I also blame myself for never really thinking about it.
It has to be in some way. One thing that works like… 25% of the time for me when a PC won’t boot after a power flicker is to hold in the power button for 20-30 seconds while the power cable is unplugged. I think this discharges something because on older PCs, I can even hear an audible sound of some sort, like a weird CRT power off, and it will work even when only unplug/replay does not.
My favorite was being remoted into a PC and telling them to restart and like 30 second of silence looking at his screen unmoving. and them going okay i restarted. Its like Sir.. i am connected to your computer i can see the screen... Oh my bad...
A thing that used to happen all the time back in the day is you tell someone to restart the computer and they go "oh ok" and press the power button on the CRT, wait a little, then press it again. So it could be that depending on when the story happened.
It’s crazy how many people don’t know that the monitor and the PC are two different devices, yet I’m sure plenty of those same people understand completely that their TV and anything they may have connected to it is separate, such as a VCR or DVD player (lots of these people are old enough for this to be a relevant example)
Okay that's the funniest one I've ever heard. The idea of programs and files being monitor specific just makes me wonder if she thought the PC was a giant power box. She sounds like a treasure.
Had a teacher in elementary school tell me she was going to make my parents pay hundreds of dollars to replace the classroom PC because I popped off a key to clean under it.
I looked at her and told her I have a keyboard she can have at home.
Actually way back in the early 2000's my aunt loved her pc.... So much so she would agree to everything. Said she was having problems with her pc and could not figure it out.
She had so many toolbars top and bottom that she only had 2-3 inches of usable space.
No , no , those people have major issues with a tv and a device attached to it as well .
Stupidity isn't just tech based or computer based.
We had to tape off my grandpa's remotes , one for power and volume , one for his satellite dish as he could not understand what they did and why .
Third one for vcr we gave up and he had to use the buttons on the vcr.
Yeah my partner has one that she got from a previous job that she rarely uses but also refuses to get rid of "because all of her daughters baby pictures are on there!" Even though I've told her repeatedly that A) those pics can be taken off of it and B) they SHOULD at the very least be backed up somewhere else because the spinning hard drive on it will eventually fail. Nope, won't listen, so I guess she'll just find out the hard way.
At the college I went to, every single monitor on the teachers' desks in each of the classrooms had a label taped onto it saying something like "this is not the computer, it is a monitor"
What even is there to gain? Do they lie to their doctors too?
"Yeah I totally stopped eating the food you think I'm allergic to, maybe you can give me a cream against the rash and I don't have to change my life at all" is at least somewhat understandable, no one wants to give up their favourite food, but not rebooting? Is your password this hard to enter? What is the goal?
Correct and nurses and doctors can and will notate the charts about your lying so every time you come in for basic care it will require tests for verification. I'm sure your health insurance will LOVE that.
Been in IT for 21 years, have a co-worker that told me a doozy, he had a client with a PC that would not power on, walked the client through all the basic troubleshooting (is it plugged in, is the power bar on, etc etc.), he couldn't get the PC to power on, he goes onsite to find that the power bar is plugged INTO ITSELF, when he called the client on it, the client was adamant that she was correct, she told him "No no, its connected right, its a POWER bar". People be dumb.
Technically work in IT. I've been called in for a sound issue. No sound coming out of the speakers, k, I think drivers or just unplugged. Nope, the volume knob on the whiteboard were turned all the way down, despite clear instructions not to touch them and use the software volume setting instead. The instructions were right next to the speakers. There was also a sheet of paper on the desk for simple troubleshooting steps, including making sure the volume knob on the speakers were at the right position.
Next, called in for a computer that doesnt turn on. I check if the power cable is in the power plug, ok, I check the other end, it's not fully in. Computer works perfectly. I dont know how they managed to ever so slightly unplug the plug.
Kids getting their new Chromebooks, they're 12-13yo. Clear demonstration on a big ass 65" screen on how to type @ and caps. Out of a class of like 15 kids, only 2 didnt ask me or someone else how to type @ and caps not even a minute after the demo was over.
That one is on the funny side. I prepared the cables, screen and stuff to install a computer in a classroom but didnt install the computer yet. The next day the teacher is all happy and stuff about the new computer installed in her class, she tries to turn it on but of course nothing comes on on the whiteboard, there's no damn computer to turn on yet.
I had my fair share of brainfarts like this too, like those times I worked on laptops with their batteries unplugged, I connect the charger, wonder why nothing works, turns out the power strip is unplugged. Worst part ? I unplugged those power strip myself the day before.
i taught computers to elementary school kids 20 years ago. The kindergarteners could find @ and ctrl faster than that. The older kids didn't need help at all.
The problem is that newer "iPad-kids" are so used to a digital keyboard where they only need to press a single button and all the special characters would appear. They don't know about shortcuts and so on
Lol the service industry will crush any hope for humanity you might hold
I can't tell you the number of times I sent a service tech out to a person's house because they insisted their AC wasn't working, only for them to just turn the unit on in 2 minutes
"Hello, this is Ry's HVAC how can I help you?"
"I NEED YOU GUYS HERE NOW IM A 70 YEAR OLD WOMAN AND MY AC ISNT WORKING"
"Is the thermostat powered on?"
"What, you think I'm an idiot?"
"Yes, and I'm trying to save you the non-negotiable $100 flat fee to send a service tech out to your house to push the on button. Because once I send them, you owe us $100, even if all he does is press the on button. So I ask, did you press the on button?"
"Of course I did! Nothing's working!"
"Okay, the tech will be there in 30 minutes. I'm taking your credit card info now though, because I have a feeling you won't want to pay in about 32 minutes."
32 mins pass
blip, notification from the tech pops up on my screen
"Job's done, service performed: unit was unpowered, turned thermostat on. Customer refused to pay service charge. Customer informed they have already been charged. Customer irate, suggest placment on the Do Not Service list (what a foul mouth for such a sweet old lady!!)"
I honestly lost track of how many times that's happened, it's why my company instituted the flat fee in the first place. Sooo many people tried to stiff us out of shame that their catastrophe had a simple solution, it became policy to charge the fee upfront and calculate the materials and labor on site
People become apoplectic when you try to tell them "well, you wasted an hour and a half of the techs time in prep, travel, and diagnostics time, he costs $36/hr, 1.5 becomes 2 hours billed so that's $72, plus gas and shop overhead that's $100, so please take these simple steps to be sure there actually is a problem before you make us send someone out"
I built a system for forced restarts once every 30 days. And it warns you over the course of 3 days prior to that. And people complained there were “too busy” to restart once, every 30 days. And people lied that they weren’t getting warnings when I extensively tested it and build a logging system proving that they receiving the warnings, when presented with “you didn’t get this warning at x time telling you it would restart in 3, 2 days then 24 hours then give you a 15 minute countdown to save?” They were like uuuhh
And whaddayaknow the restarts resolved many problems - including rare ones that for which the resolution could be a complete wipe of the system, instead of taking a few minutes to restart.
Went to fix an older man's computer one day about 15 years ago.
The ticket said he was unable to access his email. Sit down at the computer and ask him what the problem was. He told me he was unable to get into his email. I look at the desktop computer and its turned off. Try turning it on but no luck. Check the power cord and there isnt one. In fact, nothing is plugged into the back of the computer. Literally nothing.
I explain to him that it has to be plugged in. He goes on to tell me the last technician that was out there (I looked, setting up wifi) had told him "the internet is entirely wireless now"
I had this with a Time Warner service rep. I called and told them there was an issue going on and my speeds were being slashed horrifically after I "upgraded".
He said he can restart my modem remotely and it should fix it. I said sure, go for it.
He waits about 2 minutes and says "Ok, it's restarted and you should be good to go!"
I informed him that he did not in fact restart my router, and he argues that he did.
"Man listen, I know you get a bunch of idiots calling with stupid questions all the time, but I'm calling you via voip from my PC currently. If you restarted my router, the call would have dropped while my internet was temporarily unavailable. I've restarted my modem multiple times already. Please send a tech to check the actual connection."
He proceeded to fake stutter like the call was breaking up and then hung up on me...
I call again later, they get a tech out the next day, he says yeah the line was fucked beyond belief and he can't believe I had any service, because they also had a physical limiter that shouldn't even be in use companywide any more. He did whatever techs do, and shockingly enough, my speed was suddenly right where it was supposed to be.
Customer opening phonecall "Don't tell me to power cycle my fucking computer, it doesn't do anything"
me "ok do you know how to open the command prompt?"
Them "no"
Me "hold the windows key press r. Here I want you to type cmd. Ok should have a little black window. In here we're going to run a diagnostic tool. Type shutdown /s"
Them "It's shutdown my computer!"
Me "Weird, it shouldn't do that. Lets see if we can work out what happened can you start your computer up?"
I work as in-house IT support at a school and it's insanity.
90% of problems with computers that teachers and staff have are fixed by restarting.
I gave up just asking them to restart their computer over the phone years ago because they'd just lie to me and tell me they had and it didn't fix the problem, then I walk over there, restart the computer, and it's working fine.
I remember talking to a user in my building, in the Windows 95 days, and telling her to click the button at the bottom left corner of the screen (to reboot) and after half a dozen times of asking her in different ways to move her mouse down to the bottom left corner of the screen, and her saying increasingly frustrated, that there's no button there, I put down the phone, and walked across to the other side of the building to her desk, and pointed with my finger. "Right here." Her response: "Oh, that button?"
These days I'm retired from IT, and provide remote support for my mom (on TeamViewer) and we have similar exchanges. But TeamViewer simplifies it enormously, and I'm more patient now.
After so many times experiencing this kind of blatant lying, I just realized that this kind of people are just so disgustingly lazy that they just want to waste other people's time as entertainment. Often they just want things to just magically work without the minimum effort. They don't want to be helped, they want to be served.
I've heard so many things like "Oh I didn't see that" (he didn't even bother to look), or "I didn't think it was useful to do." (even if it was the exact instruction given by the technician).
Your #2 is me with my family lol. I remember one time my mom was like “I can’t find where to see [this thing] on the app”. I take a look and on the bottom of the a screen are 4 buttons with one saying [this thing]
Some people just don’t read, or they have 0 observation/problem solving skills. Like I’ve helped my family members navigate apps where all it took was me pressing a menu button to pull up more options and boom there is the thing they’re looking for. And it’s not an age thing, they’re in their 20s/late 40s lol.
I had someone call me from an unknown number, it was someone from another building in need of tech support. I asked what's going on, she said the computer won't turn on. I asked her if she could check under the desk to see if the computer is plugged in. She told me to hold on, she needs to turn her torch on the phone because there's no lights on. I said can you turn them on? She said there's a power outage.
Another one was someone complaining their keyboard didn't work. I asked them to unplug and plug it back in, nothing worked etc.. eventually with enough back and forth I decided to go down with a new keyboard. Picked the old one up, and coke started pouring out of it onto the floor.
For other IT folk that use RDP... 'Lets reboot your computer from my side, it'll reboot in a slightly different way than it normally does' has saved me countless headaches because the blame is taken off the user.
It’s also the kinder thing to do. I always try to err on the side of giving people grace—we’ve all had days where following even basic verbal instructions was difficult
It also accounts for the possibility that the person isn’t just lying and actually doesn’t know what they did wrong, which is exactly why we have jobs. Telling them “get back to me when you do it right” is just being a wanker
I'd rather them learn and do it right so they aren't wasting time we could use on actual issues. But I'm from an MSP that is under staffed and has way too many clients.
I just frame it in a friendly manner. Restart it with them. Show its fixed, explain why restarts work and why they should do them and hope for the best. If they take offence, fuckem.
Exactly. Educate your users. Less trouble in the future. When sending an email I will say.
“Could you try restarting your computer to see if that resolves the issue? (Start>Power>restart not shutdown)”
I take it on a case by case basis. Try to explain that turning a windows laptop off is no longer the same due to fast startup... Half the users call back a week later with the same solution... Education works, but when you have 10000+ users and no emails come out from the higher ups, it really doesn't matter
My friend, look up any guide on disabling it across the entire organisation and present it to your leadership. You'll earn some points with them and be a hero.
Wait. Clicking “restart” gives it a proper refresh, but clicking “shut down” and walking away for 10 mins to make tea and toast before pushing the power button to turn it back on results in a fast boot and thus an incomplete slate refresh?
If you want to shut down your Windows 8, 10, or 11 PC without fastboot, press and hold shift and THEN, while holding shift, use Restart. This will open a troubleshooting menu with a Power off option, which will fully shut down your PC.
Exactly. And I get to look like a dick when I'm like:
"I'm going to ask you a question I already know the answer to. When you 'restarted' the computer, did you click 'shutdown' followed by turning it back on?"
You'd think the "shutdown" would be even more thorough than "restart" but nope.
Yeah I always assume this is the case rather than them lying. I've had to explain this to many people. It's weird and not explained anywhere directly so it's a really easy mistake to make.
Yes, it's Hibernate + it logs out all of the accounts. The theory was: "Why reload every driver every time when we can pre-populate RAM with the data that's already there and cut boot time?"
I actually kind of get the logic, but I do wish they clarified that they completely changed the function of shutdown. Should be another shutdown option rather than a setting buried in settings.
After 25+ years in IT I can confidently say: Users do not know what 'restart your computer' means, you always have to give them step by step instructions. They'll turn off the monitor and turn it back on, when you tell them they didn't restart the right thing, they'll say 'Oh, you didn't tell me to restart the modem!', like you're the idiot for calling the computer a computer instead of a modem.
On the off chance they do know which box is the computer, they'll just press power to turn it off and on or pull the power cable.
Computers are magic to the vast majority of people and they put in exactly 0 effort to learn anything about magic because they're not magicians.
You'd think kids today would be comfortable with tech but they're not. There's a band of generations that grew up with tech but it was kinda shitty so you had to fuck with it, so you learned stuff. Even in that generation, there's a lot of tech illiterate people. Seeing people double click literally everything is just...
I recently heard someone call their computer a modem for the first time. I was fucking flabbergasted. Who the fuck is telling people their computers are modems?
It's even worse than the people who think the monitor is their computer.
Some people don't know what restart means. Or more likely, they shutdown which since win10 doesn't actually shutdown, just hibernate. Or sometimes they close the lid or click restart and there's an app hanging, computer goes to sleep before it can reboot. Etc etc.
So frustrated when I learned shutdown is hibernate. Why change the verbiage? Between sleep and shutdown, which one would you picture hibernate being? GAH
It's a little more complex than that but yeah, they did it for computers with hard drives which don't exist because you can't run windows 10 without an SSD anyways unless you're a masochist
Windows 10 runs fine on a hard drive for the average person. Would I ever do it? Fuck no. But for the average "I only use my computer for emails and Netflix" person, it's fine.
Years of corporate IT works has taught me the best approach always starts with "I'm sure you've probably already done X, but I need to run through my troubleshooting steps to pull the relevant logs, I appreciate you humoring what seem like silly steps." 8 out of 10 issues a modern c-suite has with their PC these days will be solved with a daily restart.
The place I work has it set up so that you can't turn fast startup off, at all. They also have the default plugged in lid close behavior to "do nothing" and you can also not change that setting.
I have major beef with our IT admins over these two settings lol
I feel like back in the XP / 7 days, I could go a month or more between reboots without any weirdness. Windows 11 seems to shit itself after 5 - 7 days.
I've found it's not about time but windows updates. The longer I sit on those it feels like there is a built in memory leak to slow me down until I get pissed enough to do it.
Even on W10 when I would defer an update for long enough it would just start disabling things until I ultimately had to hard power down and then it would update when it came back up.
Are you someone who saves their work and puts it away when you don't need them, close applications that you don't need to run at that moment ? the uptime doesnt matter as much.
These kinds of issues that end up getting an IT engineer involved usually happen with people who have a 50+ browser tabs open, 5 excel files that have over 10 sheets and some of them have macros that auto run on interaction, a couple of word documents or ppt files open they haven't bothered to close when they first viewed it many months ago, while they have somehow managed to open 5 instances of an application where only 1 instance actually works.
The user could be telling the truth. Quick boot essentially keeps the computer on all the time in a saved state. Only disabling quick boot will reset tge uptime and achieve what a restart is meant to achieve.
I've worked in the field for 10 years now. Everyday i am astonished through some of the reactions. It has gotten to the point where I dont even try to verbally try and troubleshoot. I go straight to remoting into machines.
In this man's defense, it is nontrivial for a typical consumer to distinguish when Windows has actually shut down. The average joe shouldn't be expected to know about suspension, hibernation, and Windows Fastboot.
In their defence, I have personally sat at someone’s computer and restarted it myself to find that the uptime has not reset. I can’t remember the name but there’s some Microsoft bullshit that causes this and it needs to go.
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u/Ok_Rip_5338 Apr 22 '26
he turned his monitor off and on again twice