I finally had to explain to a grown man why you can't fix a blue screen by unplugging the PC while it's running

2 comments

2 Comments

noahs8212d agoMost Upvoted

Oh MAN I feel this so hard. I had a buddy who thought rebooting was the same as shutting down and then hitting the power button again while the computer was still on. Took me forever to explain that the blue screen is basically the computer screaming for help, and yanking the plug is like trying to fix a car engine by ripping out the battery while it's still running. What finally worked for me was just handing him a note that said "if the screen is blue, just hold the power button down for 10 seconds and wait 15 seconds before turning it back on." He kept a copy of that note taped to his monitor for like two years. Sometimes you just gotta break it down into the SIMPLEST possible steps for people.

troyjackson12d ago

Respectfully, I see it a little different. I think telling someone to hold the power button for 10 seconds is almost as bad as what they were already doing. That just cuts the power hard, same as unplugging it. It might work to get them unstuck from a blue screen, but over time it can mess with the hard drive or corrupt files. What I've always told people is to just wait. If the screen is blue, give it a solid 5 minutes. Sometimes the computer is trying to dump the memory or fix itself, and yanking the plug just makes it start all over. After 5 minutes if nothing has changed, then yeah, hold the power button, but only as a last resort.