computer confusion

[edenfalling]

On Tuesday night, my laptop asked to push a system update from HP (the manufacturer; I have an HP Envy). I looked it over, insofar as I was able, and it seemed reasonable. So I gave it permission to install, my computer restarted, and everything seemed fine.

On Wednesday, I unplugged my laptop and hauled it around all day so I'd have it with me at the Board of Trustees meeting in the evening. Since I am both the Clerk and the scribe, I need a way to access documents and take minutes! It woke up as normal, ran a slightly dimmer screen to save battery life, and general seemed fine.

When I got home after the meeting, however, and plugged my laptop back in to recharge, it utterly failed to start.

It bluescreened me and insisted I had A) no hard drive and B) no BIOS.

I ran a few of the checks I could access via the F2 menu, but they came back either fine or "Sorry, I can't check that because your hard drive doesn't exist," which was both frustrating and discouraging. So I turned it off, did some chores and read part of a hardcover book, and went to bed.

Today I scheduled an appointment to drop my laptop off with Geek Squad Friday afternoon, to look it over and see if they could resolve the problem.

But!

I decided to try turning the laptop on again to see if the problem reproduced itself... and everything is once again fine???

I mean, I'm not complaining! But that was a very strange incident.

I am also backing up all my data onto my external hard drive and I'll test the computer again in the morning to see if the issue has recurred. If things still seem fine, I will cancel the Geek Squad appointment... but not quite yet. *wry*

Comments

[redwolf]

I've had Windows pull the same stunt on a work laptop. I kept rebooting it until it eventually realised it had a BIOS and HDD, so same solution.

I have no idea what causes this. The planets were in the wrong alignment? I forgot to sacrifice a chicken? I lean towards it being that Microsoft creates terrible software (or buys decent software and destroys it).

My current annoyance is Teams, which has a single purpose of IM, but which Microsoft market as the miracle Swiss Army knife of software. Provided I just want to use the IM side of things on a Macbook, it works, but the moment I try to use the call function it goes into a reboot loop. Which was fun when I was trying to call a Director. ::headdesk::

And the less said about the horror of Sharepoint, the better.

[edenfalling]

My current theory is that something got slightly jostled while I was carting my laptop hither and yon... and/or Windows threw a minor tantrum over the HP update until it realized (upon another reboot) that actually the update wasn't scary at all. *wry*

I have determinedly avoided having anything whatsoever to do with Teams, except my rehire interview with Not the IRS since that was the only available format. It worked okay for what was essentially a 5-minute phone conversation, since the district boss didn't bother to turn on their video.

[redwolf]

Teams is intermittently flaky for all across the business, but any meeting of more than five people is almost guaranteed to have one person it falls over for.

I don't to the video thing because I'm a weirdo with privacy issues. That aside, it sucks bandwidth. I've seen the mouth breathers from HR run a meeting with 50 odd people, ask everyone to turn on their cameras and then look baffled when everything falls over.

A colleague is on what we jokingly refer to as bush internet; an old ADSL connection when everyone is supposed to be on a faster service (government corruption killed that plan), but her location is apparently a too hard basket for installation. Video for her is a nightmare.

The phone thing I can handle. We were issue Jabra headsets, which was great if you're making a couple of short phone calls a day, but not ideal if you're in Zoom meetings all day. I hate on ear headets, they hurt. I grabbed a cheap, brightly coloured over ear headset earlier in the pandemic, but upgraded it recently to a wireless model. I can sit in the backyard and listen to pointless town hall meetings now. The meetings still suck, but I'm no longer trapped at the laptop for the duration.

Headset research was a time sink of insane usage Venn diagrams that didn't quite overlap cleanly.

[marmota_b]

There was a point in history when my father used to say "Everything is Gates' fault."
He's stopped saying it because it's no longer Gates' fault, but, you know...
Everything is Gates' fault!
;-)

[edenfalling]

Ha! :)